


Saturnalia

by sacae, sharklion



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: AU, Gen, Incest, ensemble fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-01 14:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2775995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sacae/pseuds/sacae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharklion/pseuds/sharklion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shingetsu Rei is probably the only person he knows that is equally terrified of ghosts and dueling-- so of course, he's the one who ends up attracting an amnesiac spirit that wants him to collect cards to get his memories back.</p><p>A role-swap AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Come on, the pawn shop is this way!" Kotori strode ahead, her grip on Rei's hand tight; she didn't want him ‘accidentally’ falling behind, after all. "I promised you ice cream afterward only if you went with me, right?"

“Yes, but- then again, now that we’re out here, it is cold right now to be eating ice cream. That is, maybe another time would be better—”

“Geeze,” said Kotori as she stopped in her tracks, abruptly enough that Rei nearly bowled into her. “Didn’t you already agree? Don’t back out after saying you’ll come along, Rei!”

"I—" he sighed, already knowing he was beaten, "I didn't mean I was going to back out. But, do we know this is the right place? They may not even be open." He glanced at the building Kotori had stopped in front of, the closed door and no indication of open hours.

"No better way to find out, is there? Come on, let's go in!" Kotori sang cheerfully, and threw open the door to the shop. Cheap fluorescent lights lit the inside of the shop, and there was no getting around it. It was clearly open for business. The shopkeeper's eyes focused away from his D-gazer to watch them as they walked in, Kotori confidently, with Rei following behind. It was discomfitting, but he probably just didn't get a lot of kids their age in here. That must have been all it was.

"You kids have something you're looking for in here?"

Rei answered with, "Nothing. We just came to browse," at the same time Kotori said, "Yes, do you have a gold charm necklace? It's called the Emperor's Key." Their eyes met and Kotori smiled at him before looking back at the shopkeeper, while Rei slumped and looked away. 

"That thing?" he snorted, "Another couple kids following up on those haunted rumors. Figures." On a busier day he might have shooed them out, having real customers to deal with, but the cold had emptied out the streets and his shop as people stayed home where it was warm. He stood up and motioned them to a row where expensive jewelry lay closed under a glass top, while cheaper costume jewelry and knick-knacks hung on hooks above. He jerked his thumb at one, a strange gold pendant on a leather cord, tacky enough to fit in with the rest of the cheap fakes. "There you go. Nothing really to look at."

“Could we touch it?” asked Kotori, before Rei had a chance to suggest that they had seen it now and should leave.

"No reason why not." He waved a hand, a ‘go ahead’ gesture. He had an eye on both of them, and with no other customers in the store he wasn't really worried about them grabbing it and running. “You break it, you buy it.”

"Thanks!" Kotori removed it from the hook, dangling it from her fingers in front of Rei's eyes. "See, nothing to be scared about. It matches the rest of your necklaces, even." She looped the cord over his head, and dropped it on him before steering him over to the mirror. "What do you think?"

He closed his eyes and shuddered as the trinket dropped onto his chest (and it was certainly just anxiety and his irrational fear of ghosts that made it feel something like finality). But Kotori was insistent, and she was his oldest and best friend, and probably trying to help, really. She teased a lot, but this was to help him with his fear that he was on the verge of being too old for, so he cracked his eyes open just a bit, to see how it looked. It hung around his neck, outshining the silver jewelry he already wore like a crown jewel among so much background noise. It looked like it was meant to hang there. 

He already hoped he could take it off as soon as possible because it was _creepy._

"It looks like—with all the other necklaces, a bit much. Now, I fulfilled the bargain, so if this was all, we can go get ice cream?" His voice peaked at the end a bit, hopeful that this minor ghost hunt would be finished without any incident, and soon.

"Oh, don't be like that. I think it looks perfect!" she turned back to the shopkeeper, who had gone back to absently watching something on his D-gazer, only paying them enough attention to make sure they didn't run off with the merchandise. "How much does it cost?"

But before she received a reply, the door to the shop swung open, and a man stumbled in with a drunk's swaggering steps, his eyes strangely unfocused and wide. The shopkeeper didn't look pleased, but he was the _perfect_ excuse for Rei to step away from Kotori and her mission to purchase him the worst present he could think of. He jogged over, concerned, as he called out, "Sir, are you all right? Sir?"

Rei reached out for his shoulders, hoping to steady him, and quickly regretted it-- the man snatched at his wrist with startling speed, and held him in place despite Rei’s attempts to jerk free. “Bring me all the money this place has,” he snarled, his grip tightening painfully around Rei’s wrist, but behind them, the shopkeeper had already slipped away.

Rei thought, for a moment, that his vision was starting to white out from panic—but it was the Emperor’s Key, shining brighter and brighter until he could no longer say where he was. Everything except that gold light was deluged in shadows, made dark and indistinct. Except—when the light started to recede and his eyes adjusted the black abyssal valley didn't fade from sight. The shop had crumbled away all the around him. Only a narrow strip of the ground remained and the only way out, forward, _anywhere_ was blocked by a colossal door, chained shut over a carved toothed maw.

"Open the door."

No one was around, and Rei definitely hadn't said anything. The necklace wasn't just haunted, it was _cursed_. He tried to steady his trembling, his voice as he looked around. In the dark he could have missed the speaker. "Is someone there?"

Instead, it intoned again, booming louder, "Open the door." Cursed. Definitely cursed. "Once you do, you will receive a new power. However, as the price for being granted this power," it didn't trail off, but paused, deliberately, as if in a play, before continuing, "you shall lose that which is most important to you."

If it weren't for the precarious path, Rei would have backed away. His first instinct was to refuse politely but firmly, but even if he'd rather not—there was no other way out of here, that he could see, and he'd left Kotori alone in that shop with the robber. He couldn't leave her there, and he couldn't stay _here_. He clutched the gold key to his palm and steeled himself, "Is that all you'll tell me? Not even the price? And-- that's the only way to get out . . ." 

It stayed silent, imposing, and closed. To himself Rei whispered, "I thought so." There was nothing else to do, then. Whatever happened, it had to be better than staying here and leaving his friend alone and in trouble. "Then, it's for the best—!" He launched himself forward, sprinting towards the door with his arm outstretched, the key held tight in grasp and thrust his hand into the opening.

For a moment, his wrist lodged between the stone as the key jammed in and electric white light flooded from the socket. And then it was more than light, it was power and wind and Rei was blown back onto the narrow path as the chains shattered. Heavily the door scraped open, more and more light blinding his vision. But even through the veil of white, he could just barely make out something—someone glowing blue with gold orbs—eyes?—flying straight at him. Then, the impression of an orb, cards circling around him, then dissipating and—

He was back in the shop, thrown face-first to ground by the robber, his wrist bruised from the grasp he'd just been released from. But now wasn't the time to wonder about that strange dream, hallucination, whatever it was. He got to his knees, already looking around as he called out, "Kotori? Kotori!" Before he asked if she was all right, he already knew the answer, the thief coming towards her as she backed against the wall. This wasn't good at all, his sport was track, not any sort of self-defense—

"Why do you stand there? We must act."

Rei whipped around to find the source of the new voice—and screamed. Floating in the air behind him was the blue glowing thing that came out of the door, half see-through. There was no question. It was definitely a ghost, and definitely addressing him. 

"Duel him, and take down the threat." Make that ordering him.

“ _Duel?_ ” Rei echoed incredulously, his own voice pitched higher in his ears from building panic. _’He doesn’t seem interested in dueling,_ he meant to say, but the robber turned away from Kotori and rounded on him once more.

“A duel, huh?” The man grinned too wide as he pulled out his duel disk and all but slammed it into place. “Once I’ve crushed you with this power, you’ll bring me what I want!”

"That wasn't what I—" but now was too late to protest with the robber already connecting to the AR network. He didn't even have a deck—with no other options, adrenaline surging, he grabbed the nearest deck from a display case. The ghost had better have some idea what to do if this was going to go well, because Rei had only the most vague idea of how to play. He swung the d-pad out of its pocket and latched it to his arm and let it unfold to battle position, with the deck he'd just taken in place. 

“The first turn is mine,” the robber announced, and took his first draw. "I set one monster face down, and three cards! Hurry up and take your turn, brat; the sooner you go, the sooner I get my money!"

Behind him, the ghost made a displeased "Hm," sound by his ear and Rei flinched. He had to work with it, but that didn't make it any easier, especially as it floated right over his shoulder, to look at his cards. "He spoke with confidence, but made a very conservative first move. He is setting up for something." Which meant nothing to Rei, so he looked at his cards—Gemini monsters?—with the most confusing descriptions he'd ever seen. He had no idea what to do with them, and standing there, dumbly, nervous, _surely_ the ghost had to notice his distress. The ghost took his time to study Rei's hand, then offered, "I dislike intruding, but I sense that he has something of mine. Allow me to fight through you."

It was all Rei could do to bob his head in nervous agreement. "Summon Dark Valkyria, then lay down these two cards," instructed the ghost. Rei bit his lip, and looked down the narrow space of the pawnshop—and backed against the wall best he could, clearing the way for his summon. _Please_ let this be enough room, he thought—and given form, almost given _life_ by the AR network, a black winged figure materialized in front of him with a crash, clawed arms curled, casually prepared for violence. To rip, and tear into the opponent, and—Rei shuddered—this is why he never played this game. "Now, normal summon Dark Valkyria again." 

He turned his head to look at the ghost. Surely that couldn't be how the game was played? He had it out on the field already. But the ghost looked serious, staring at the cards on field and Rei hesitantly called out, almost afraid to command the figure before him, "And—I summon Dark Valkyria to the field! Again!" 

And despite his doubts, there was another whirl of power, and this time the gems on the Dark Valkyria's armor and wings shone, magic glistening below the surface. Now there was nothing casual in her pose, everything deliberate intent. She was prepared for attack, eager for it.  
"Place and remove one spell counter, destroy the face down card, and then direct attack." 

But almost without Rei repeating the spirit's words, Valkyria was eager, and she took a single step forward of her own volition, and the gems shone—bright, then brighter, and a crash of the same energy that brought her to the field wiped the robber's hidden guard away. And she took her chance, and sprang forward, her solid vision clearing the display cases in a whir of black wings to come down on him with a slash of her claws.

But the robber was an experienced duelist, and had none of Rei's tremors at the solid vision, and smirked as she descended, calling out, "Trap, activate!" She knocked him over, into a display case as Kotori behind him scrambled to get out of the way— _there was absolutely not enough room in here to duel_ —and beneath his feet centipedes burst forth from the tile, swarming at his feet, up his arms, into his deck as he pulled five cards out to the graveyard. His grin was triumph in Dark Valkyria's face, unperturbed as she sent his life points down to 2200. "Got some fight in you, huh? Too bad you're stuck with this kid! He's trembling in his boots!"

This man was completely out of his head, talking with a duel monster, sending his own cards to the grave—none of it made any sense to Rei, but the spirit's eyes narrowed in tight observation. He wanted to keep his eyes on Kotori, make sure none of the solid vision affected her, but he had to keep his eyes on the ghost, so he wouldn't miss any cues. He had to focus, and started to announce, "And then I end my—"

"No!" the ghost objected. "Set those two cards face down. Then, you may end it." 

"I mean, set these two cards, first. Then, I end my turn." The robber didn't seem to notice anything about his stutter and near misplay, though behind him, Kotori had ducked behind the shopkeeper's counter and looked at him strangely. He motioned to her the door behind her, in a small jerk of his head, that she could escape while the robber was distracted, but she shook her head and mouthed "I can't leave you behind," as the robber cackled, and began his own turn.

"Good job, on your first and your last! Now comes the big finish! I call out, my Zombie Master!" The tiles beneath the floor trembled, the earth shifting and Rei was almost positive that this was too real for it to be just the AR network, that it was more like an action duel—but there was no reason for there to be solid mass vision projectors here, away from the arenas! That made no difference to the gaunt Zombie Master as otherworldly energy swept from his hands and sent a skeletal child, and two figures that went too fast for Rei to see spiraling down into the freshly scarred crevice in the shop floor. "The Wightprince in my hand goes to the grave, and two more with him, and drags out his majesty from the boneyard." His laughter increased in volume, as the fissure widened, and from below, mounds of bones thrust upwards; larger than life rib cages fenced them in, and the doors were no longer an option. "Rise to your throne, King of the Skull Servants!" 

At last, from the macabre pile, one skeleton stood in the tatty remnants of a robe. Through Rei’s D-Gazer, its attack showed as 6000, as if the terror of the display earlier wasn't enough.

The robber couldn't help but brag, "For each Skull Servant card in the grave, he gets 1000 attack, so you see, you were helping me when you sent my Lady in Wight off the field! We'll grind you deader than he is, now! I attack your monster with my King, and then finish you off with my Zombie Master!" 

"Presumptuous," the ghost stated, completely unaffected by macabre display, even while the skeletal king raised a hand, to signal the remnants of the wights that surrounded them to pierce them through. "Activate your trap."

"And—I activate!" He had no idea which one he was meant to choose but there wasn't a lot of time until the bones shooting towards him hit home, so he simply chose, "This trap!" Around him a glass wall sprang up, and the bones that had been heading his way ricocheted back, directly into the King and Master. He looked down at what he'd just flipped over. "Mirror Force!" 

But before he even had time to breath a sigh of relief, the robber was calling out again, "You think that's enough? It ain't nearly! I activate my own trap, Ghostly Reinforcements. I pay 1000 lifepoints," he shuddered as illusory ghosts burst forth from within him, and his Life Points dropped to 1200, "To summon them back! Since this is still the battle phase, monsters summoned now can _still_ attack! Bury him again!"

 

"The trap," the ghost—the one from the key, insisted, again. "On his king, this time. He won't be able to attack, or use its effect."

"And I activate my other trap!" Fiendish Chain flipped upwards, and on the field chains entangled the revived King of the Skull Servants. 

"Well then. . . you made it through for now." The robber sounded disgusted, irritated over being denied his early victory. "I end my turn."

Rei drew his card, and fanned his hand out for the ghost to see. Even with the King stopped in his tracks, there was nothing he had that could defeat those attack points. And putting monsters in the grave would just make it stronger. . . "Play Dark Hole," the spirit commanded anyway, and Rei did as he was told, watching as a deep void cleared the field, and felt more relieved than he knew he ought to, to see the floor was in perfect repair. He pointed out two monster cards, and instructed, "Summon Gemini Scorpio, then use its effect to call out Blazewing Butterfly. Then, overlay. It is time for Hope to take the field." 

He kept his eyes on his duel disk, to keep in mind tightly that it was just a game, _just a game_ , as the double warriors of Gemini Scorpio took the field, and the double burning lights of Blazewing Butterfly behind them, before both dissolved to light and from the void of XYZ summoning came a shining white and gold warrior, swords crossed defensively as it stood guard over Rei. But before any attack could be made, an animalistic bellow from one of the robber's trap cards shut down their opening.

"I activate Threatening Roar! Thought you were going to end me right there, weren't you? But now, you'll see I was just biding my time. Come on out, my _true_ ace, towering beast of scales and sea! I play Tour Guide to the Underworld, and another from the deck, and use these two to overlay! XYZ summon, No. 17, Leviath Dragon!" The two tour guides flashed into light almost as soon as they'd appeared, and a massive beast surfaced, nothing at all like the bone-wraiths that came before it. The Leviath Dragon was a sea monster that barely fit in the shop, taking up most the floor, and it was only by repeating to himself that it was just AR-vision that Rei was able to keep from worrying about damage to the shop, to himself, and to Kotori. "They'll never find your bones, that's how deep we're going to drown you! If you were hoping that you’d be saved by your Numbers, you're dead wrong! I detach one overlay unit, and take out your Hope!" And then, he grinned. "Well, one thing first: Wightprince leaves the grave and banishes two other cards, to call up another King!" Beside the monstrous serpent, the King of Skull Servants and his macabre heap looked like nothing, but the attack of 4000 would take Rei out in an instant if Leviath Dragon cleared Hope off the field. "Now, we're taking you out!" he shouted, and the sea monster surged forward in the little space it had.

"Hope can negate attacks. Detach an overlay unit." 

"I detach one overlay unit, and your attack doesn't go through." Rei recited, performing the action. Leviath Dragon's attack crashed around Hope, but the gold barrier it put up kept his monster on the field, and shielded Rei from damage behind it.

"Fine then. I can at least chop you in half! King of Skull Servants, attack!"

Rei twitched his fingers towards Hope again, to negate the damage, but the ghost gave no command to stop the attack. The hit sent shockwaves reverberating around him, and he barely stayed on his feet as his life points dropped down to 2000. Dueling was just as violent as he had always thought it looked, but he didn't have any other choices right now. The robber ended his turn, and Rei drew his card. A quick-play magic, Double-Up Chance.

The ghost didn't seem to like boasting the way the robber did, but he looked pleased at its appearance. The spirit had Rei use Foolish Burial to send a card from the deck to the grave, then Swing of Memories to bring it to the field, place a trap, and summon another card from his hand. Rei focused on his disk, so he didn't have to see the return of his monsters from the grave, not wanting to see if it was as awful as the robber's effects had been. "Now, Attack Leviath Dragon with Hope, and negate your own attack. Double-up Chance will raise Hope's attack, and you can finish the rest of his life-points, regardless of his King."

Rei didn't need to be told twice, and wanted to get this craziness out of his life as soon as possible. "Now, I attack Leviath Dragon with Hope, a second time!" The gold sword swung down and the Dragon dissipated from the blow, and sent the robber flying back into a display case, hard enough to crack it. The AR Network was still disconnecting as Rei ran across the shop to grab Kotori's hand and hurried with her out the front door. "It would really be for the best if we're not there when he wakes up again!" he explained, as he watched from the corner of his eye while the ghost reached out with one blue hand, and a card rose out of the thief’s chest to fly into his grasp. If it was part of some vengeance from beyond the grave, he really, _definitely_ did not want to be in that shop watching.

“Rei, what happened back there? When did you learn to duel like that?” exclaimed Kotori, even as she ran to keep up, clutching his hand as tightly as he did hers.

"I—That is, it was," he stumbled over his words, trying to think of how to explain. If he answered that he didn't, it was a ghost, that wouldn't explain anywhere near enough. He barely even understood what happened himself, not with door, and not then with the duel. "I'll tell you in a minute! For now, we need to get out of here!" Belatedly, he realized he still had the Emperor's key around his neck, and the deck he'd used in his pocket.

"You'd better!" Kotori yelled back, but accepted the answer. They didn't stop running, even as they nearly ran over a boy their age who called out an apology from behind them, until they were far away from the pawn shop, by the ice cream shop that had been his promised reward for going with Kotori. Somehow, he didn't much feel up to having any now. As they finally stopped to catch their breath, he glanced nervously at Kotori, dreading the inevitable questions—and went sheet white when he saw the ghost, hovering to her right and staring straight back at Rei. He bit down and closed his mouth just barely in time to muffle a scream. Why was it following him?!

"Are you okay? You look pale." For the moment, concern took precedence over her curiosity. "Do you need to sit down?"

He didn't want to take advantage of her kindness or to be left alone with the ghost, but he needed a moment. A moment to think, to sort out the jumbled mess of the past half-hour, to catch his breath, and figure out what he was going to say to her. So he just barely managed a shaky smile, and nodded, sinking into one of the parlor's chairs and told her, "Yes. But unless we're customers, they won't be happy to have us sitting here . . ."

"Geeze, after all that, and you _still_ want ice cream? I'll be right back," Kotori turned away, and then with a quick second thought turned back to him, her hands on her hips, "You'd better not go anywhere!"

"I won't. It's a promise." He met her gaze, holding his shaky but sincere smile, until she seemed satisfied and marched inside to wait in line to order for them. Reluctantly, his eyes slid to the ghostly figure that still accompanied him, and then away. He could talk to the ghost without looking at it, he decided, they should still be able to hear each other. "Why are you following me?" 

"It is not you that I am following," the ghost said. "You hold the Numbers, and the Numbers hold my memory."

Rei swallowed, trying to get rid of the dryness in his throat. “Then if I give it back to you, can you leave?”

“It seems that I cannot take physical form in this world. Therefore, I cannot wield them myself.” In his peripheral vision, Rei could make out the movement of the spirit lowering his head, as if in deference, and felt goosebumps rising for reasons besides the cold. “As we are already bound, I must depend on your help in order to gather the other Numbers.”

"But I," he trailed off, nervous, guilt edging in as he wondered if he should even admit to it, ". . . don't know how to duel," he finished, quietly. "Today was the first time I've ever played."

He could feel the spirit peering at him, as a few short seconds dragged out into ages. “If you truly have had no experience with dueling, then you held your composure admirably,” he finally said. “I can teach you, if you will accept it. I am confident in my skill.”

It hadn't just been a matter of having no one to teach him—Rei had always been adamant about not wanting to learn. _But I don't like fighting_ , he'd tell his friends, and they'd laugh at his strangeness though they accepted it as part of him in the end. But now he didn't know if he could say not fighting was better, if it meant being followed around by a ghost forever. And even with his fear. . . it was hard to say the spirit seemed that bad. There was no moaning for death, destruction, vengeance, just a quiet nobility on his quest to gather his memories. "I'm not sure. Give me time to think about it."

"Time to think about what?" Kotori asked, returning with an ice cream cone in each hand and holding one out for Rei. "Are you really okay?”

“Y-yes. Thank you,” he answered, taking the ice cream with both hands.

“So then, are you going to tell me what happened?”

It wasn't that he didn't want to, exactly, but how could he start telling her without sounding crazy? “I don’t really know,” he admitted. “But maybe—” he hesitated a moment, wondering how much to say— “Maybe those rumors about the Emperor's Key were half right," he said. “Somehow, it’s like because I was wearing it, I knew what I needed to do.” He reached up to curl his fingers around the pendant, toying with it nervously. “Does that make sense?”

Kotori studied him a moment. “Not really,” she replied. 

He dropped his free hand back to the table, and sighed, "Not to me, either. But still, _somehow_ I knew what to do." The confused resignation in his voice wasn't an act, and Kotori reached over to pat his arm. 

"Geeze, it's just like you to get mixed up in this kind of mess. But we'll figure it out," she assured him, offering a smile. He returned it only a little bit hesitantly, and started into his ice cream before it could melt down over his fingers. She followed his lead for a short time, but then asked, “Should we go back to the shop? That owner didn’t seem to know much about it, but it could be worth asking for clues.” Rei frowned at his ice cream, and stifled the urge to reach for the necklace again, uncomfortable with the thought that it might become a habit.

“Let’s talk about normal things,” he told Kotori, looking back up to her face. “Just for a while.” He felt bad lying to her, and knew the more they talked about it, the more he would want to confess more of the details. But she seemed to understand that he was still reeling, and agreed, bringing up their math homework instead.

\---

Rio felt her brother coming before the elevator lifted him to their shared room: the regret that roiled beneath his skin, the hatred that bled from where the shard of Shark Drake ate him from the inside out. It gave her time to prepare, like she knew he was down below, to pretend to be normal again. To smile without showing too many of her teeth, without the thousand-meter stare that put her brother off Haruto.

She had her hands on her hips, face scrunched up in mock-annoyance that's cute enough to cover up how fake it is, when the platform stopped at their floor, and her brother stepped off. Ryouga looked exhausted. "So much for dinner together. Shouldn't you treasure promises to the precious sister you're doing all of this for? If you wear yourself out like this, there's no point. Or are you just a masochist, now?"

"Shut up," he muttered, dropping his coat to the floor. New bruises on his arms. . . her poor brother must have tried to take the numbers by force, before resorting to a battle where his opponent's soul would be forfeit. Her poor, broken down, dumb, kind brother, even after all this. No wonder Shark Drake was riled up. "Maybe I don't want to listen to your obnoxious blathering while I'm trying to eat."

She laughed, and bent down to pick up his jacket and shrug it on herself, fanning her arms out to show off his numbers hunter wear. "How cruel. Most people consider the silent treatment a punishment, you know." 

"Most people don't have to put up with you—hey, Rio!" he grabbed her wrist as she spun in front of their shared mirror, checking out how the numbers hunter uniform looked on her, and there was a sudden pang of nausea in his gut. "That's mine, take it off!"

She hovered her unheld hand over the zipper pull, and tilted her head and quirked her lips mischievously, and met her brother's eyes with an askew glance, "Ryouga, are you asking me to undress?" He recoiled and let go of her wrist as if burned, his face reddening as he sputtered.

"No—fine, whatever! Keep it on!" he turned away and stomped over to his bed.

A moment later, Rio dropped the coat to the floor like her brother had, and stepped lightly behind him. He fiddled angrily with his boots, coordination shot with exhaustion, and she dropped to the bed beside him, and brushed against his lips with a quick kiss, before drawing back away. He paused in his untying and looked at her. The shape of those sharp straightforward eyes were definitely his sister's, but he could see behind them the odd dullness, the impression of power that overwhelmed any light that should have shone through them. As always, they told him nothing at all, so he looked back down and reached for her hand. They entwined them easily, their rings quietly clinking against each other. 

It'd be easier, to know if the sister that loved him like this was the same as the sister that had given him the ring years ago, or if she was the one that play-acted to cover up her endless hunger, for screams, rage, and destruction. Was it real, or another step in an act she didn't quite know the right lines for? 

It'd be easier to know that the part of him that wanted to kiss her back wasn't the part that got tired of attempting muggings to take Numbers without taking souls. The part that got tired of black eyes and bruises from trying to take the Numbers without a duel and decided _fuck it_ , if those souls wanted to hold onto those cards for as long as they lived? _Fine_. It was their own damn fault if that wasn't long.

(And it'd be easier to know if there was a difference between the past Rio and the present Rio at all, and that he wasn't just deluding himself, and denying them both.)

But he was tired, and tired of regrets, and angry at the world and everyone and it felt like he was drowning all the time, so he leaned over and kissed her back. It wasn't like something not being easy had ever stopped either of them before.

It was a long moment before either of them pulled back. Ryouga's face was red, and he stood but kept his grip on Rio's hand, "So what stupid thing was it that you wanted for dinner so badly, anyway?"

"Crepes," she answered, and stood too, squeezing his hand. "Aren't you glad you didn't spend the effort getting your boots off now? Let's have a night out."

"That's not a _dinner_ food," he groused but followed her to the door.

"So? No one will stop us," she pointed out, putting on his coat. 

It was true. As long as Ryouga and Rio did what was expected of them, he doubted Mr. Heartland would care if they decided to rob banks in their free time. Then it registered. "Rio, I said that's my coat!" he shouted, and chased after her.

\---

After parting ways with Kotori, as he walked slowly home, Rei finally glanced at the spirit still following beside him. (Now that his fear was finally waning, Rei couldn’t help but think how young he looked, for a ghost—rounder-faced than even Rei was.) “I should ask,” he spoke up eventually. “Who are you? What’s your name?” He remembered, abruptly, that the spirit had mentioned something about the Numbers holding his memories, and amended, “If you remember, that is.” Their eyes met, and Rei halted in his steps, fighting down the urge to look away.

“My name is Durbe. I would tell you more, but that is all I can recall,” came the answer, and Rei nodded, just slightly.

“Shingetsu Rei,” he replied, offering out a hand before he could catch himself.

The spirit, it seemed, made the same mistake, and his hand passed through Rei’s. Durbe looked mildly flustered as he pulled back, and Rei—didn’t laugh, not quite, but felt one in his throat, building up and drowning out the urge to scream.

He dropped his hand and smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

“Thanks for the food,” recited Rei as he stood from the table. “I’m going to go study in my room.”

“All right,” said his mother, though she gave him a curious look, as she had been doing all evening. Rei didn’t blame her; he had been fidgeting all meal, and couldn’t bring himself to tell her what had happened.

Once in his room, he closed the door behind him and turned to Durbe, who was studying him with an expression not unlike hers. Whatever it was he was thinking, however, he didn’t say it, so Rei spoke first.

“I know you don’t remember much, but is there anything you can tell me?” he whispered, moving away from the door to the far corner of his bed, where he sat upright on the edge of it. Durbe continued to float almost as if he was standing, arms at his sides and his feet roughly shoulder-width apart. “You said you could sense that the man at the pawn shop had something of yours.” What Rei really wanted to ask about was the door, but he got the feeling that Durbe would know less about that than he did.

“The Numbers are fragments of my memory. Of this, I am aware. On my arrival in this world, I must have collided with something, and this seems to have scattered them.”

“Then—that was you, after all.” Rei replied without thinking—for a moment he wanted to take it back, until it struck him, suddenly, that he didn’t have to. There was no point in hiding anything from Durbe. There was no way to pretend things were normal when he was talking with him, and he could speak more freely with Durbe now than he had with anyone all day. It was relieving but a little scary, to realize how tense he'd been with everyone since the duel. 

Durbe nodded, like Rei had given him new information to confirm, but he didn't look surprised or angry; he was the same picture of calm determination he'd been almost this entire time. "That event is likely what has linked us as we are. Resolving this task should resolve our bond in turn."

They had both been assuming as much already, but to hear there was a. . . well, not quite a rational explanation, but a reason to support the theory made Rei feel a little more solid. It took things out of the realm of strange curses and the unstable ground of having no idea why anything had happened, and having no idea what would happen next. It was grounding, to know. "Oh. Well… We were planning on that anyway, weren't we? You need your memories back."

"I do.” For the first time, Durbe gave him a small smile. “And to obtain them, I offered to teach you to duel. Is now a convenient time to begin lessons?" he asked, seriously.

"Um," Rei began. There was really no reason to say no. He had to eventually, and even if he didn't want to. . . well, waiting wasn't going any good. He pulled out the deck again, and steeled himself. "Okay. Let’s start."

\---

It had been too much to hope that his friends wouldn't notice the new deck and make a fuss at school the next day. From the class president reprimanding him for not wearing the school's regulation belt for duelists, to Sachi taking the time to tease Kotori for being the last one left who didn't play, there was a _lot_ of fuss. But it was Tokunosuke's comments—about the price of the deck, and making comments Rei wasn't quite sure weren't entirely serious (it was Tokunosuke, after all) about who Rei had swindled to get his hands on some of the cards—that made Rei realize something.

He hadn't _paid_ for the cards, or the key. He'd just run out of the shop in a hurry, and now, stricken in response to Tokunosuke’s inquiry, he let out a quiet, "Oh, no." His friends laughed, assuming he was playing along with the joke, until he faced Kotori and exclaimed, "I have to go back to the shop!" 

Nervously, the class president asked, suddenly worried, "Rei, you didn't really. . ." but his question trailed off, not wanting to make any specific accusations. It was all the opening Rei needed, abruptly breaking off from the group and starting into a full sprint.

"Don't worry! I'm taking care of it now!" Rei called over his shoulder. "See you tomorrow in class, again!"

“Hey! Rei, wait up!” Kotori shouted at his back.

“Sorry, Kotori! There’s no time!” Actually, Rei was hoping to get some time alone with the shopkeeper—with what had happened with the robber from the day previous, he wasn’t sure he wanted to bring Kotori into something which might put her in danger. It wasn’t too hard to shake her off; Rei wasn’t the star of the track team for nothing, and her footsteps faded out behind him soon enough.

He had just decided he had enough leeway to slow to a jog when suddenly, as he was glancing back over his shoulder, a person stepped into his path. Rei stumbled back from the impact, but managed to stay standing, while the boy, curly-haired and well-dressed and somehow familiar, was knocked to the ground. "I’m sorry! Here, let me help you up,” said Rei, extending a hand. Wordlessly, the boy took it—and clasped it too tightly, his head tilting up to show Rei a smile and bright, green eyes all too wide and vivid.

“Hey,” he said, while he used Rei’s instinctive attempt to pull away to help leverage himself back to his feet, “won’t you please show me that pendant, sir?”

Rei felt his skin crawl, and Durbe beside him called out, “Shingetsu Rei,” in a low, alarmed voice. ‘I know,’ he wanted to say, or ‘you can just call me Rei, or Shingetsu, but both is a little weird,’ but with another person in front of him Rei couldn’t address Durbe without it looking strange.

Instead, he grabbed for his deck with his free hand, and shouted, while still trying fruitlessly to pull away, “If that’s what you want—you’ll have to duel me!”

“Really?” To Rei’s relief, this seemed to be the right thing to say once again, and the stranger released him and began to walk backwards, creating the necessary distance for a duel. “Then, all I need to do is defeat you, and you’ll comply with my request. Is that right?”

Without even waiting for a reply, the boy threw his duel disk up into the air and set his D-gazer in place in the time it took to come down, both pieces part of a white, feather-like matching set. He did it with a practiced ease that intimidated Rei despite himself, as he struggled to snap his own disk into place. “Fine,” he agreed, fighting not to stammer, “but only if you win!”

"Now—" going first was an advantage, Durbe had told him, if he could manage to call it.

Unfortunately his opponent had thought the same, and smoothly cut in with the same too-wide smile, "I'll be taking the first turn, if you don't mind." There was the sound of three cards being set, one of them a monster face down and in defense mode, and he motioned for Rei to go on.

"Aren't. . . you supposed to tell me what you did?" 

"I played three cards from my hand," he replied.

Which was completely unhelpful, but Rei could tell he wasn't going to tell him anything more than that. He looked over at Durbe, prepared to take his orders but the spirit just shook his head. "This opportunity will test the skills I taught you. Should it look like you are in danger, I will come to your aid." It was nerve-wracking, but—at least if things went bad, he wouldn't be alone in this.

"I—" he started, then stopped. If the other boy wasn't announcing his plays, he wasn't going to give him an extra advantage. Dark Valkyria, gems shining and wings spread, already wreathed in Supervise's aura, was summoned in a flash of power. Behind her he readied two cards to support her on the field, and her magic swept to his opponent's hidden monster, shattering the revealed Crystal Skull. Despite the open field, his opponent's smile didn't waver.

His Valkyria breached the opponent's field, charging across the shattered remnants of the skull, and closed the open space between them, but Rei was half-expecting it already, with all those set cards, when the boy danced a few steps backward and chains entangled Dark Valkyria, who shrieked with dismay as her power was sealed off and the other boy remained out of reach, his life points wholly intact.

"Thank you for setting up my field. You see, I needed something in the grave to get enough cards out for this," suddenly willing to talk, his opponent explained as his turn began. A headless set of crystalline bones were scattered across the field, and then reassembled with the shattered skull returning to pristine form, and besides those two a giant Moai head thumped onto the field. "Activate, Orihalcum Chain, and Power Tuning! Now, with only two monsters, my Orihalcum Chain allows me to overlay OOparts Crystal Skull and OOparts Crystal Bones as level two monsters to bring forth—" around him swirled the portal of XYZ summoning, a black ooze rippling outwards from within, "No 96— Black Mist! Go—destroy his confined Dark Valkyria!"

Tangled in chains, she could only bare her teeth at the XYZ monster whose power sapped her strength by half, then turned it against her. Rei took a sharp inhale of breath as his life points dropped to 3900, less from the blow-back of losing his monster and more from the pang of fear and realization. This duelist had a Numbers, the same as that man in the shop—was that what caused this weird behavior? 

He glanced sidelong at Durbe, the implications of that drifting to the forefront of his mind, but the spirit mistook his glance, and met the look with a solid nod. "We can no longer afford to lose this battle. Take out his continuous trap. It is too late to avoid the summon of No. 96 but if he has other XYZ monsters, we do not want it to give him the advantage of getting them out so easily."

Right, that made sense. Aware of his opponent’s gaze, Rei didn't nod, but activated his set quick-play spell, and a bolt and whirlwind descended from the sky to take out the Orihalcum Chain. Struck, it snapped and—rebounded!? The chain severed, Black Mist was no longer anchored to the other boy's side of the field, and drained away onto Rei's. This had to be why he wasn't announcing his cards—he didn't want to describe its weakness!

"Now, summon! Clear away his Moai Head and nothing will defend him from a direct attack from Black Mist," Durbe directed, but Rei's attention was elsewhere. On the other side of the field, with his Numbers monster taken away, the other boy had collapsed to his knees and was staring at the in progress duel with confusion clear on his face, the unnatural brightness in his eyes dimming as awareness drifted in.

"Are you all right!?" Rei crossed the battlefield, ignoring the cards and monsters, to the other boy's side. 

"I'm fine," he trailed off, then looked up and met Rei's eyes, "Who are you? And why are we dueling?" It was all the prompting Rei needed to eject his deck, wipe his field clear and return his cards (the new Numbers included) to his pocket. It was probably because of Durbe that it didn't affect him, but he doubted he should return it now.

"Then, if you don't know, it's for the best if we stop for now. We can always duel another time, can't we?" Rei smiled, and held his hand out to help the other boy to his feet. The boy still looked uncertain, but he reached up to accept Rei’s help—and then his eyes drifted downwards.

“That pendant!” he exclaimed, standing abruptly and taking both of Rei’s startled hands in his. “That’s right! I saw you yesterday!”

“Huh?” responded Rei. Inwardly, Rei was already beginning to panic once more—could it be that this person was involved with Durbe, even without the Numbers?

“You seemed to be in a hurry,” the boy explained, and suddenly Rei remembered—he had nearly knocked this person over in his rush to get away from the pawn shop. “So I didn’t want to stop you, but your pendant—” Rei tugged, in vain, to try to free his hands, “—is really interesting! Seeing it up close like this, it’s most certainly a relic of some kind, and yet even I can’t tell what area of the world it might be from! This is the ‘haunted Emperor’s Key’ from the rumors, isn’t it? Do you know anything about it?”

“Not… really.” The boy looked crestfallen at the admission, but Rei felt all of his worries melting away. This person wasn’t involved; he was just a slightly strange and excitable fan of ancient relics. “I don’t think the shopkeeper knew much about it, either.”

“I see…”

“... But,” Rei added, “maybe the person who sold it to him could tell you something. I’m heading there right now myself, anyway.”

Before the boy could respond, an approaching voice called out, “ _There_ you are!” Kotori ran the last few steps to Rei’s side and bent over to catch her breath as she finally came to a stop. “I finally caught up,” she sighed, before her eyes drifted up to Rei’s companion. “Who’s this?”

“Uh,” offered Rei.

“My name is Mihael,” he answered, smiling.

“I’m Rei,” he said, “and this is Kotori.”

“You’re the one we nearly ran over yesterday,” she noted, pointing.

“You have a good memory,” praised Mihael. “I was just asking Rei about his pendant. But it seems he doesn’t know much about it, so I thought I might ask the shopkeeper—since that would mean we’re heading in the same direction, would you mind if I accompany the two of you?”

Rei thought for sure Kotori was going to chew him out for offering to go the shop with a stranger after trying to leave her behind, but Mihael’s smiling face was disarmingly sweet, and she agreed without protest.

The rest of the walk passed in companionable small talk. Mihael occasionally became excitable again, before he would recall that Rei and Kotori already told him that they didn't know much, and he'd quiet down, a little sheepish. Kotori would laugh, and Rei smiled, too. It felt like the first steps in a new friendship, and walking through the shop doors together felt almost symbolic.

“Sorry, kids,” said the shopkeeper, though he extended a hand to take the money Rei had just finished counting out. “Not much I can tell you. No one sold it to me—it was just dropped on the ground out front.”

Not only did Mihael all but wilt on the spot, but Kotori grew a small frown as well, and though Rei only chanced a glance in the presence of others, he thought he saw a similar disappointment somewhere in the corners of Durbe’s ever-stoic look. Rei himself was half-relieved—who knows what kind of character they might have ended up pursuing, if they’d learned the person’s name—but the weight of having nowhere to go for answers sank heavy in his gut.

“Thank you, anyway,” he told the shopkeeper, bowing his head. Kotori and Mihael followed suit, and after Mihael briefly looked over the rest of his wares, the three of them headed out once more.

“Too bad,” mourned Kotori. “I guess we’ll just have to wait to see if there’s anything to those rumors.” Rei laughed nervously.

They returned to the same meaningless conversation they’d been having before—describing the different flavors of ice cream available at the shop to Mihael, who seemed impressed it could be made to taste like so many things—until Kotori and Rei began to round a corner, and Mihael stopped.

“Well, I have to go another way,” he said, pointing down his own path, “but thank you for allowing me to accompany you. It was wonderful to meet you both, Rei-kun, Kotori-san.”

“Oh. Yes,” agreed Rei, a little sad at having to split up so soon.

“You too, Mihael-kun,” Kotori added.

“So, I’ll see you both tomorrow?” At their stunned looks, Mihael asked, “Didn’t I mention? I recognized your uniform. I’m a late transfer, but I’ll be starting at the same school as you tomorrow. We might even be in the same class!”

\--

"How are you doing today, Haruto?" His voice was quiet, warm, meant to comfort. An anchor for Haruto to focus on, but not something that would startle him out of his thoughts, as he crossed the room to stand by the younger boy's side. 

"Niisan," Haruto quietly acknowledged, his gaze fixed unwavering on the window.

"You don't need to. . ." he began, but trailed off as Haruto took his hand.

"Niisan," he insisted. It was hard to refuse him, and he knelt down and put his hands on his shoulders.

"All right." He rested his head on his shoulders, and hugged him, lightly. "All right. Dr. Faker hasn't been working you too hard?"

"No."

"Mr. Heartland, either?"

"No. Rio-neesan is always the one working, now." 

He'd already known that, but nodded. "She told you that?"

"Mm. She comes around, sometimes. She says it's quiet here."

His voice flattened as he asked Haruto, rhetorically, "Does she."

Haruto nodded. "But it's not true. You can hear laughter," he spread his hands across the window, overlooking the Heartland Park. "And. . . sometimes screams. More of them, now. Because of Shark-san. And you. Right?" His quiet question went unanswered, and the fingers on his shoulders tightened, slightly, unconsciously. "I like it better that way."

With a last soft pat on Haruto's shoulders, he stood. "I know." He didn't have much time to spend here, and listening to the dark twist in Haruto's thoughts made his heart heavy.

He turned to go, but Haruto spoke again. "Niisan."

"Yes?"

"Rio-neesan is downstairs. She's waiting for you."

Rio was exactly the person he didn't want to deal with, but he wouldn't let Haruto see him make a sour face. With a last soft smile, he told him, "Thanks, Haruto. I'll talk go talk to her." With the elevator that went to Haruto's room being the only way in and out, he didn't have a choice in the matter, but the lucid nod Haruto gave him made him think he'd said the right thing. He strode over to the central stalk of the tower, and took the platform down.

As promised, Rio was indeed waiting for him. Without her brother around, she dropped her act—the more human gesture of folded arms, or leaning against a wall, she didn't adopt anything like them for him. She waited centimeters away from where the platform lowered to the floor, her gaze fixed emptily upon him, and told him with a voice and smile just as empty, "My, aren't you a good big brother." But even said completely flat, the barbs were enough to get under his skin.

"Be quiet."

"How cruel. Haruto-kun wouldn't want to hear his precious siblings fight."

"The less I know about your idea of ‘precious siblings’, the better." It would have been enough to make Shark snarl and stomp off, but Rio's stare didn't waver.

"Are you judging? We're only hurting ourselves."

He kept her gaze, his eyebrows raised. The silence was enough to indicate his thoughts on that—her brother's Numbers hunting and her and Haruto's part in the campaign against the Astral World as evidence to the contrary. 

"The part you object to,” Rio countered the unspoken argument aloud. “Or do you mean to tell me you really find all of it distasteful?" 

He turned away, to walk down the hall, and return to his work, a nerve struck. Rio moved to follow him before remembering—she'd come to see Haruto, hadn't she. She allowed him to walk off unaccosted, but a strange thought stuck in her mind: it wasn't only her brother that hated his duty. 

He really was the worst kind of hypocrite.

\--

They were in the midst of reviewing Rei’s deck again when Durbe looked up from the cards and said, “Shingetsu Rei.”

“You know, it’s fine to just call me Rei.” And then, because leaving it at that felt somehow awkward, he added, “Or Shingetsu.”

"Shingetsu," Durbe tried. And then, having confirmed it sat comfortably in his mouth, he started again, "Shingetsu, why have you not informed anyone of my presence? Or our goal? The assistance of another duelist would be invaluable."

"Kotori isn't a duelist either," he answered, without really answering the question.

"Mihael appeared to be. Considering his interest in the Emperor's Key, he could become a valuable ally." 

Rei kept his head down, and pretending to be focusing on rereading one of his Gemini cards. But the obvious avoidance of the topic didn't sit well with the spirit, and he felt his gaze staying on him, unmoving. "Maybe, but it's strange. A little too convenient, maybe?" he shuffled through his magic cards, trying to find the words, "It's hard to tell the people I already know, because. . . well, this whole thing is wild. Crazy, even. But to tell a stranger when I avoid the people I know doesn't feel right, either."

"I see. You are concerned over the matter of if your companions are trustworthy." Durbe's voice was impartial, but Rei blanched.

"I trust Kotori!" he protested, vehemently, though he kept his voice down. "I just don't want her or anyone else to be in danger."

"Danger?" 

Rei nodded, looking back up at Durbe. "You don't think it's strange? I know you don't have your memories, but all the people with Numbers we've met so far have been crazy. But Mihael— you saw him with it, and then when he lost it. It's not that they only go to crazy people. And—why am I okay? Don't you know any of that?" Nervous, he rambled, and then stopped abruptly, averting his eyes, before returning to Durbe. "Not that I mean to accuse you, but it's all overwhelming. I don't know what to think."

Durbe nodded. "I understand your unease. But there is little information I can offer you, with only two Numbers obtained." 

"That's still one more than we started with. Didn't you remember something this time?" Rei asked, but the spirit stayed silent. At Durbe's continued lack of answer, after a minute, he prompted again, "Durbe-san?"

The sound of the spirit's name jarred him out of his contemplation, and he shook his head. "What I do have so far, without further context. . . I don't understand it. As my memories become clear, I will share with you."

"Oh. . ." Rei quietly acknowledged. “But then, you will share as soon as they do?"

"Yes."

Rei didn't want to press further, and extort the spirit for a promise when he had no reason to believe he'd do anything other than what he said. Still, the knowledge that the one memory that Durbe got back, he'd rather work through on his own before trying to figure it out with Rei sat uneasily in his mind. They were partners in dueling, but outside that, it was clear he couldn't be sure how much that held true.

\---

There was something wrong in Heartland, something rotten. The streets were clean, bright and well-maintained, but Droite didn't buy it. A city could keep a facade up for tourists, but be festering with corruption right beneath the surface. And officials wouldn't address it, if they could help it—they had a lot more to lose by getting mixed up in it than looking the other way.

And she knew Heartland was looking the other way. Her brother had come here, on study-abroad, and not come back. Even now, her pro-duels paid for his bills in Heartland Medical Center, where he lay near-unrecognizable. His hair was whitened, eyes dull, skin sallow and he was completely unresponsive. A freak accident she could have believed—if it weren't for five others in the ward in the same condition. Five others, brought in on different days, from completely different circumstances.

The only thing they had in common? They all were duelists. 

So when the professional track offered her a chance to transfer, to be part of Heartland's world-famous league, of course she had said yes. 

No matter the danger, she would get to the bottom of this. That was the power of her love—and the card that had come to her, the night she had first seen her brother after his _accident_. 

She lingered at his hospital bed a moment longer, as the nurse reminded her visiting hours were ending. She couldn't do anything for him, waiting here. Hand lightly over her deck, she left, and strode out into the night. 

There was work to be done.


	3. Chapter 3

Kotori found it hard, that day, to just go home and focus on her homework like usual. Her thoughts kept drifting away from algebra and off to the other “Numbers,” the cards she had seen Rei and the would-be robber pull out to compete with. Kotori might not play much herself, but she kept up with the game, and she had never heard of Numbers, even though surely Tokunosuke and the class president would have excitedly discussed the appearance of new cards with skills like those.

It wouldn’t have bothered her so much, though, if it weren’t for the change in Rei’s behavior.

Kotori and Rei had been friends for years, longer than anyone else around them—she knew what he was like by now. He hated conflict and risk, and he did his best to mitigate or outright avoid them wherever he went. If it were just challenging the robber, that could have been a panic response, to protect her. He certainly had been surprised when he was taken up on the offer. But that he kept the deck afterward, and had paid for it instead of returning it at the shop?

Unthinkable. And that he had run off without her… If this was him turning a new leaf, it wasn't one she liked at all.

(And that he had been so open to bringing along a stranger, but not her… hurt.)

With no explanation for the sudden shift, she ran through the possibilities. The obvious leads were the key that was supposedly haunted—she was kicking herself now for teasing Rei and making him try it on, but it had seemed so harmless at the time— and the strange Numbers cards. With the shop being no good for investigating the key, she could keep looking around. But with it being infamous enough to be an urban legend, she doubted there was too much more to the rumors that she hadn't heard already…

That left the Numbers.

And well, if Rei was finally dueling… It wouldn't be strange if she decided to start too, even if it was only _really_ because she wanted to find out what was going on. She wasn't going to let him leave her behind!

She opened her desk drawer, to the dusty binder of cards she'd received over the years—a default gift from relatives that hadn't known any better, school acquaintances, and from friends trying to get her to join them in their games. She knew the rules, and she'd seen enough of everyone else playing; surely it couldn't be that hard to make a deck of her own.

And then, later, her deck arranged—hopefully well—she looked out the window, at the sun that hadn't yet set. There was still time for her to go out and look for clues.

\---

As he'd hoped, Mihael was in the same class as Kotori and Rei. He waved at them from the front of the room as he was introduced, before he took his seat where he was instructed. But there was no chance to talk until break, where they all converged on Mihael's desk, and Kotori dragged Rei over to make sure he didn't run off again. 

Mihael smiled up at them, pleased to see them again, but shocked at all the people gathered around him. "I didn't realize being a late transfer would attract so much attention." 

"You didn't expect attention? But with that cute face, you'd think you'd be used to it!" Kotori teased, to Mihael’s reddening cheeks.

Rei patted him on the shoulder, "Don't mind her. She's just teasing." Mihael laughed sheepishly, his shoulders still slightly hunched self-consciously.

“Do you guys know each other already?” asked Tetsuo, and Rei stammered. _Suspicious,_ thought Kotori.

“We ran into each other by chance a couple of times,” answered Mihael, “and I was interested in Rei’s pendant, so I asked him about it.”

“Hey, that’s right—” The class president immediately recalled Rei’s abrupt exit, and the spotlight turned to him instead, everyone asking whether he really stole it, if he had paid for it now, and just what did he do something like that for, anyway?

In the midst of the distraction, Kotori found the opportunity she had wanted—she leaned closer to Mihael and asked, quiet though not whispering, “Could I talk to you after class?” He glanced at her curiously, but nodded, and she flashed him a grateful smile.

"Ah—it was… something like a misunderstanding? Someone tried to rob the store—not me!" Rei cut himself off and waved his arms in front of himself, denying the accidental implication, at the class president's disappointed-in-him look. "It was a little chaotic, and we left so we weren't caught up in it. I forgot I was wearing it, still." Rei was explaining, as Kotori tuned back into the conversation, "That's all it was. Kotori and I were really far away by the time I remembered I never took it off." He looked over at her, beseechingly. "Isn't that right?"

Had she missed him telling the others about the part where he dueled the robber, or was he just leaving it out intentionally? Still, she nodded. "Yes, but you also—"

"Took the deck! I know. But it's all paid for now, so it's taken care of."

At Rei's cutting Kotori off, the class president looked over at Kotori and sternly questioned, "He did pay for it, right?"

"Yes, of course!" 

Mihael chimed in, "But it was really unfortunate, that the shop keeper couldn't tell us anything about the pendant. I'm sure something so old has a really interesting legend behind it! The rumors couldn't have come from nothing."

"Rumors. . . You mean that's the haunted key? Rei bought something haunted?!" Tetsuo, who'd always ribbed Rei about his fears looked surprised in particular.

"Well, Kotori said it looked good on me, so. . ."

As the conversation turned away from the story about the robber, Kotori couldn't interject and steer it back to the information Rei left out, and it might have been her imagination, but he looked a little relieved. _If you don't want to duel or talk about dueling, why did you keep the deck?_ she thought, but of course, he couldn't read her mind. She'd just have to ask him later, maybe after she talked with Mihael. Maybe he'd be easier to get a straight answer out of when they were alone.

On the other hand, after how weird he'd been acting these past two days, maybe not. She sighed and turned her attention back to the conversation.

\---

On their way out of class, Mihael was actually the one to approach her first. They lingered behind, just out of sight of the classroom doorway, and he began, "Kotori-san, you wanted to speak with me?"

She nodded. "Do you duel, Mihael-kun?" Kotori asked.

"Of course," he answered, visibly bemused. As anyone would be, with how commonplace dueling was.

"Then," she pushed on, "have you heard of cards called Numbers?" Mihael was quiet for a long, considerate pause. "I heard of them just recently," she added, attempting awkwardly to fill the silence. "I don't really know much about them."

Mihael offered her a sheepish, apologetic smile. "I'm sorry. I've been trying to think back, but I must not have heard of them. Is this important? Maybe we could look for clues about them while we look into the key."

"It's not that important," Kotori answered and cast her eyes down. Investigating with Mihael sounded _fun_ —but she was sure Rei would be alarmed that she even knew this much.

"Oh." Mihael's shoulders sagged in her peripheral, and Kotori felt a stab of guilt—now she and Rei were both dragging him into their problems, and on top of that she had disappointed him. "Was that all?" he asked. 

"Um, actually..." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and steeled herself. "What did you say to Rei yesterday, before I caught up with you? It's just that you two barely met, and he's usually such a private person. He had really wanted to go to the shop on his own..." she trailed off.

It took him a moment to answer, hesitation and—was that embarrassment?—in his voice when he did. "I can’t really remember. My attention was very focused on his pendant, so I'm not quite sure what I said in my excitement. I hope I wasn't too pushy." 

"Rei can be pretty stubborn. I've known him forever, so I'd know best, right? You don't need to worry about it. If he really didn't want to go, he'd just need to outrun you!" Kotori fixed a smiled on her face for Mihael, who seemed to be worrying now, too. "Sorry for taking up so much time over something silly. But would you mind keeping an ear out for me? Or if you remember what you said! I'd really like to hear it."

Confused, Mihael smiled back, matching her expression politely. "Of course, Kotori-san. You're a very good friend, worrying after him like this."

She didn't feel like one, going behind his back, but she nodded. "I'm trying to be." 

\---

Leaning back at his desk, Rei toyed with the key. He was used to having Kotori around to bounce his thoughts off of, and it was difficult to get them in order on his own. But. . . he wasn't alone. Hesitantly, feeling strange talking to the air, he called out, "Durbe? Our only lead dried up at the shop. What should we do from here?"

The spirit materialized at his name, floating above Rei. He dipped his head in a small greeting, and immediately began to speak. "For now, we must pursue further information. A gathering place for duelists could be a promising place to begin."

"There's a few parks around with a lot of open space, they're pretty popular." Understandably, since any place too confined tended to work out less well. "There's one nearby that a lot of classmates spend time at. But downtown, there's one where a lot of adult duelists go. They might know something students don't."

“So adults can be expected to hold more information than students,” Durbe noted aloud. Rei looked up at him, jarred by the strangeness of the comment. He remembered that Durbe had amnesia—but he took things so calmly, Rei hadn’t been braced for him to not know something so… normal.

“Yes,” Rei eventually confirmed, “since they’re older and generally have more experience with… things.” After a beat, unable to help himself, he blurted out, “You can ask me, you know. If there’s anything you’re confused about, it’s for the best for me to answer what I can.”

"You are already helping me with retrieving the Numbers. Would it not be unfair to ask for more?" Durbe inquired, weighing the new offer.

"No. Or more, if it's fair or not doesn't really matter to me. You're—" living wasn't the correct word, and he struggled for a moment, thinking of a new one, "—staying here, and I want to help!"

"I am imposing."

"No. Well, yes, a little. But since you’re here, I’d like to assist you. If I didn't help out when I could with something little like this I'd feel bad."

"Understood. Then, when I have questions I will ask them of you."

Rei smiled up at him. "I'll be happy to answer." Then he had a thought he was pretty sure the spirit _could_ answer. “By the way… where did you go just now? You just appeared when I called for you.”

Durbe gave him a long, slow look, as though considering his answer. “There is a space inside this key," he replied. "Within the key is a vast puzzle, made of great interlocking gears. There are spaces for the Numbers to be placed upon it, and I suspect it is powered by them."

Rei lifted his key up to eye level, and glanced back up at Durbe. “In here?” It hadn't seemed that strange for a ghost to be haunting a piece of jewelry, but the idea of a giant gear puzzle inside was bizarre. Inanimate objects didn't usually haunt things, as far as he knew. “What is it for?”

There was silence, a while. Then, eventually Durbe said, “I do not know.” After a moment longer, he seemed to push on, saying, “Within these circumstances, the depth of my ignorance is… trying.”

Maybe Rei should have found both of them going about this whole Numbers gathering business blind to be worrying, but there was some comfort in knowing that they both were on an even footing. It was better than worrying about things being hidden from him. However, telling Durbe he preferred that he was ignorant too probably wasn't a points-winning reply, so Rei responded neutrally, "It's okay. We'll figure it out together. So. . . to the park?"

With a solid nod, Durbe agreed.

\---

Going around asking at random the day before had only told Kotori what she already knew—that hardly anyone had even heard of Numbers. Today, she had a different plan.

There were countless online forums dedicated to dueling, although Kotori had never spent much time on any of them before. Through a quick internet search, she found what seemed to be a fairly well known one with a high member count, registered an account of her own, and hit “New Thread.”

Then, staring at the blinking cursor in front of her, she suddenly began to question what she was going to say. Should she tell the truth? _A person with one of these cards tried to rob a store, and my friend who had never dueled before used one to stop him_ —no, she couldn’t say that. But then what? Did she hear about it from a magazine? From an overseas friend?

“Ahh, geez! No more overthinking!” she declared, and typed what seemed easiest.

_Does anyone else have a “Numbers” card? I got one just recently, but most of my friends haven’t even heard of them! Has anyone else seen them in action, or know where they came from?_

Kotori hit “Post” and tried to pull away to do other things for a while, to allow time for people to read it and write up their answers, but it was only about fifteen minutes later when she caved and returned to refresh the page.

There were no new replies to the thread, but near the top of the page, the conspicuously colored font announcing a new private message drew her eye. It was from someone with the username “Ka110,” who had no avatar to their name—but Kotori didn’t dwell on that long once she read the body of the message, distracted by the dull thud of her heart in her throat.

_What you’re asking about is dangerous. I’d rather discuss it in person, if you’d be willing._

\---

"Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about," said the woman before Rei. Just like the business man before her had said, and the university student before him. Asking one by one like this with no leads wasn't really doing any more good than eavesdropping on other's conversations at school did.

"Well, thank you for your time, anyway." Rei told her, and she nodded, going back to her evening walk. 

"The adults you have asked so far have given us as little information as the students. Is there no better method available to us?" Durbe asked

Not wanting to talk to himself in public, Rei just shrugged, and kept looking. Next. . . there was a couple on the benches—he probably shouldn't interrupt them—but nearby a man was reading a novel, taking advantage of the plentiful seating in front of the park's outdoor stage. He probably wouldn't mind being asked too much. Asking randomly like this wasn't the most productive, but he didn't have any _better_ ideas on how to do it.

But he didn't get the chance. As he approached the seating, a commotion on the stage of the amphitheatre caught his attention—and everyone else's.

A woman with two-toned hair and a professional duel disk had a familiar person—Mihael!—in a choke hold. "Which of you has a Numbers!?" She demanded, her voice amplified by her D-gazer, and if the shouting might have gone ignored otherwise, her hostage kept anyone from dismissing her. "Come forward and give them to me, and there won't be any trouble here tonight!"

"Her method seems efficient," Durbe commented, floating beside him.

"Durbe—!" he started to retort, to explain that _well, yes, maybe, but that wasn't the point; he wasn't going to take anyone hostage,_ before deciding that now was _really_ not the time to try and teach a ghost that hostage-taking wasn't a good method of doing anything and he didn't have the strength for it anyway. Right now, he recognized the look on the woman’s face—it was the same too wide-eyed glazed look the robber from the pawn shop had worn—and Mihael was there, struggling within her grasp, trying to squirm away. 

He really _hoped_ she was just crazy because of a Numbers and fighting her would actually help, but he didn't have any choice even if it didn't. He needed the information she had, and he couldn't leave a classmate in danger alone.

"I have one—no, two! I have two! So, let him go and duel me!" he called out, fumbling to set his duel disk while he headed for the stage, people scrambling out of his way as he went, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire.

Her eyes narrowed at him, watching his approach. With a snap of her wrist she displayed a single card between her fingers, her other arm still not loosening her grip on Mihael. "Display your Numbers. I have no desire to involve an innocent in this," she announced, despite her hostage.

"Here!" Not nearly as neat and practiced as her motion, Rei fumbled for his extra deck. In his haste to respond to her, he had forgotten how many he had, already, and considered pulling out all three—but the idea of bringing out Black Mist where Mihael could see unnerved him, and since he already declared just two cards, Rei pulled out Leviath Dragon and Hope. "These are my Numbers. So let him go. He doesn't matter, right? These are what you're after." 

She nodded and released Mihael, who fell from her grasp and stumbled across the stage floor to Rei’s side. “Rei-kun,” he gasped, while Rei’s hands shot up to his shoulders to steady him. "I'm sorry, I was just—"

Now wasn't the time to talk. "You're okay," he confirmed, looking him over the best he could. He'd just do his best and finish this duel, and then they could get the Numbers and get out of there. 

But Mihael's eyes widened at something over his shoulder and mouth started forming what could have been a warning or could have been his name—Rei turned to look but it was like when he found the key, the gate—his vision was swallowed up by a swarm of blue scales, covering his eyes, and when they were finally gone—

So was the park. So was Mihael. 

So was _Durbe_.

In the jungle, it was only him, and the woman.

"I thought we would discuss this alone," she said. "You may call me Droite. You will tell me what you know about what happened to my brother."

"I—what? I don't know who you are, or anything about your brother!" he protested.

"Very well. If you won’t talk, I recommend you run." She didn't have any interest in his explanation. "Swallowtail will be after you soon." More than anything, it was the confidence that terrified Rei—the similarity of the closed space of the jungle to the gate's dark abyss—no, he did not want to stay to find if her words were empty threats. He ran, and at his back heard the beating of wings.

It was supposed to be solid vision, but he should have fallen off the stage by now, run into a bench, tripped over Mihael, _anything,_ and yet his only obstacles were the vines and the undergrowth, the small tears in his skin and clothes they cut into him as he swerved through the foliage. He ran faster. All his noise had to be alerting her monster, but he couldn't risk being found.

" _Durbe—_ ," he hissed, more breath than voice, swinging his head wildly around. Did he know anything about this? Regardless, he felt he could use the spirit’s help now more than ever, and yet he couldn’t see even a faint glow anywhere in his surroundings. "Durbe, are you here?" he called out again, over the sound of his heart thudding frantically, even though he ran more and further than this every day. The pounding in his ears was fear—panic. He was alone here. He was supposed to be helping Durbe but instead he was here, alone, being chased by _Swallowtail_ , Droite's promised menace. He was terrified, and there was nothing he could do—he didn't know how much was fear for himself and how much of it was _failure_. He'd made a promise he couldn't keep and he hated having the situation slip out of his hands; a duel he thought he could manage, but _this—_

With his mind clouded with adrenaline, it was half mad impulse and half prayer that brought his deck to his fingers and a monster held to his chest. He stopped, his shoes skidding through crackling twigs from the abruptness of it, and whispered to her in desperation, " _Dark Valkyria_."

And she came. He reached out to her, as she watched impassively, and ran his fingertips along the cool metal of her bracer claws. Solid, sharp. The twinge of pain was all it took to bring him back to reality; he steeled himself, willing his voice not to shake as badly as his legs were, and ordered, "Take me up." He pointed, just in case, not trusting himself to stay confident enough to give more directions, but she understood and swept him into her arms. They launched upwards, a bullet between branches as she took to the sky, above the canopy. 

But he'd heard _wings_ —it wouldn't be long until Droite's Swallowtail caught up with them. And even from this height, there was no sign of seams in the world, any way out. The gate wasn't here this time either, which meant—the only way out had to be the person who summoned it. "Valkyria, I need you to find Droite—a tall woman, I mean—" he added, having no idea if she would know who he meant, otherwise. "She was back there, but she probably kept mov—" Dark Valkyria didn't wait on him to finish speaking, but moved like an extension of his thoughts, and flew towards where he'd seen Droite last, clutching him to her chest in her arms.

They didn't reach the clearing. A blade with chain attached shot out as they flew overhead and wrapped around Valkyria's ankle, yanking her down. They fell together, and Valkyria kept him shielded, her arms and wings wrapped around him tight, as they came down _hard_. As they crashed onto the forest floor, her grip on him came loose and he jolted from her grasp, falling to his knees in front of a masked woman with sunset butterfly wings—Droite's Swallowtail. With a jerk of her hands, the chained weapon came loose from the entangled Valkyria, and returned to its wielder.

The sheen of the weapon was just the same as Valkyria's bracers-- sharp, metal, and _solid_. It would slice into him like anything as mundane as a kitchen knife. It shone like it was real. Rei scrambled back, a noise between a whimper and a cry caught in his throat—was this it? All that time on the track team couldn't have ever prepared him for anything like this—no one ever invited maniacs with knives to practice—he didn't want to _die_ —he never wanted to get mixed up in any of this but he just wanted to _help_ and—he couldn’t do this on his own, he needed Durbe, someone had to come help—

He shut his eyes.

"—Crystal Alien!" a cry rang out from beyond Swallowtail, and Rei's head jerked up at the reverberating blow of steel against crystalline flesh. The bright light of an overlay unit was swallowed up and the blow was deflected, Swallowtail's blade ricocheting back and hitting her in the arm. While she was distracted, Mihael ran into view, straight past their monsters and over to Rei, not losing speed as he took him by the hand and pulled him into step beside him. "Rei-kun, are you okay?" Mihael asked, between panted breaths.

"She didn't get me!" Okay would have been an overstatement, with his heart beating his ribcage like it was trying to break out. "How are you here—?!"

"I'm not sure either—there was something she did! But at least, it seems like the rules of dueling are still the same in this space!" 

"Then, if we win, do you think—?" Mihael nodded in agreement, even before Rei finished verbalizing the thought. He stopped running and looked back, biting his lip as he gripped the key. "We're going to need to lure out Droite."

"Since you have the cards she was after, she'll be focused on you." Mihael replied, looking over his hand, and then into the tree branches above. "I'll move above you, in the trees. I should be able to get the drop on her, if you can keep her attention. Does that sound like a good plan to you? I’m sorry to ask you to play bait."

Rei didn't have a better idea. "I'll go ahead."

"Good luck!" Mihael wished him, and then hoisted himself up, heading high into the trees. His Crystal Alien followed, leaving Rei alone. He drew out a card and looked down at it—Crusader of Endymion. If he was only acting as bait. . . He called Blazewing Butterfly out instead, equipped with Supervise, just in case. The warmth of its wings added to the already sweltering jungle, yet it reassured him somehow—he wasn't without a way to defend himself. He let the fiery creature lead the way, picking his way through the treacherous greenery as carefully, _slowly_ as he could, to buy time for Mihael to move above.

He didn't need to buy much. Droite had caught up with her Swallowtail, and had two more of her butterfly assassins with her. Valkyria was nowhere to be seen—Droite must have destroyed her while he was away. He didn't have any delusions that his Blazewing would stand up before her monsters, but it didn't need to. Mihael was overhead, out of sight but waiting, and Rei has his chance—his D-Gazer was still functioning even in this strange space, and he could pick out the weakest.

"Blazewing! Attack Morpho!" Droite's head jerked in his direction as he ordered his monster into combat, caught by surprise but not off guard. It was only when she turned fully towards him that he could see her golden eyes were calculating—expectant. But Blazewing was already to Morpho, ready to collide and set her alight. It was too late to rescind the order, and Rei was expecting it as much as Droite was when his monster's light flickered abruptly and doused, a gold ring surrounding it and piercing through the insect body.

"Assassin's Gate," she explained. "It should be clear now that it is in your best interests to give up. Will you surrender? Or shall I finish you off now?"

"That really isn't much of a choice!" Rei’s voice wasn’t steady, but he kept his eyes forward, not giving away Mihael's location, and that was what mattered.

"It sounds as though you have made yours. Swallowtail!" Her calm was more decisive than any shout would be, and Swallowtail, still wielding the kunai with chain, swung the weapon at him. He stumbled back, reflexively, and narrowly avoided the blade as he tripped and it embedded in the tree trunk behind him. He scrambled to his knees, preparing to dodge a second blow as Swallowtail jerked the weapon back.

A second blow never came. Heavy chain linked stone flew from above, weight and momentum crashing into Droite's monster and wrapping around her, securing her and wrapping her arms and wings tight against her body. No attack would be coming—from her. 

But Droite was a professional duelist and her parry came as quickly as it took for her to draw breath. "I construct the overlay network with these three monsters. XYZ summon! Come forth, No. 28, Phantom Butterfly Assassin Queen, Alexandra!" Three of her monsters were engulfed in the whirlpool vortex of an XYZ summon, the colored lights of their essences swallowed in the deluge of darkness before emerging again, circling Droite's Number: another butterfly warrior. This one with a mask that spiked into a crown's thorns, wings of shifting hue— brown and cream that marbeled over black and jeweled turquoise, then back again, the only part staying the same the Numbers brand of 28. There was no weapon in her hands, but she doesn't need one.

With a stroke of her massive wings, wind stirs, and a few more and the whirlwind gusts throw Rei from his feet and Mihael from the canopy above, breaking branches and whipping vines and leaves into them. A brush of heat stroked Rei’s arm, and then a spread of corrosive pain—Rei twisted away from his Blazewing with a yelp. He kept his eyes screwed tight against the debris and didn't open them until the winds died down and he fell to solid ground.

Droite, he could see, had been lifted by her own monster's skill too but with nothing left on her field but her Assassin's Gate she'd been spared the brunt of damage, while his arm was stinging, a shallow burn blossoming raw and painful across his skin, aggravated by debris. Off to his side, he could see Mihael slowly pulling himself to his feet, using vines for support but disoriented from his long fall from above—and they had no monsters, magic, or traps left to support them. Everything must have gone to the graveyard.

He remembered Mihael saying that dueling worked the same here, but he wasn't certain of that, suddenly. Droite stood once more, and pointed, a wordless direction to Number 28. Another attack—but he could feel Supervise's unused power welling up, and if there were no turns in this duel, he wasn't going to wait. He took Dark Valkyria from his Graveyard and slammed down his Swing of Memories—both his monsters resurrected and he called Crusader of Endymion to his side. None of them had the power to withstand a blow from Droite's Queen—but Hope did. Speaking as rapidly as he could, he invoked the overlay network, calling Hope to the field with his Blazewing and Dark Valkyria.

"Hope! Destroy Number 28!" he shouted, breathless, trying to run to Mihael's side, to push him out of the way, knowing there was no way he'd make it but unable to stand still. But his monster had the speed he didn't, and sliced a path through the jungle like a window's sliver of light through a dark room, and the golden sword arced down into the Queen's path, a blow across her back and she was gone. Droite had no other monsters on her field—it was his chance. "Crusader! Quick, before she can do anything else!" His remaining monster, which had been keeping pace, staying by his master's side in case of further danger, now lept through the trees and charged at Droite. The shell of his armor slammed into her with a force that made Rei wince, and she fell back.

Suddenly, all around them, the sweltering heat of the jungle began to dissipate, the closed space of the created jungle weakening. And with that snag in the thread of reality, like a veil unravelling, Rei became aware of Durbe's presence at his shoulder, floating as if he'd been there unseen all along. 

"You did well, Shingetsu." It was steely praise, not one trace of empty flattery. "One more blow and we should be released.”

He wanted to ask how Durbe could tell, and he was worried about doing more damage. The smarting of his burn wouldn't let him forget how dangerous this duel was, and he didn't want to hurt her, but she was already stumbling to his feet and it was all he could do to give the barest shadow of a nod, acknowledging. He drew in a deep shaky breath to announce another attack—

Only to find he didn't have to. Mihael had recovered, and a headless set of crystalline bones loped over to Droite, and punched her. With all the damage from earlier, it seemed to be all the damage that was needed to undo the last of the fake world. Droite stumbled backward, and all at once they were in the park again. Rei shot Mihael a questioning look, unsure of whether to approach the woman with the numbers, and Mihael smiled and answered quietly, "I was closer, and it was all I had in my hand. It ended it quickly, didn't it?" 

While Mihael answered, Durbe reached out and retrieved the Numbers from Droite, who was beginning to look around, confused. It must be memory loss, like Mihael's incident when he lost his card. But this was worse than then. Mihael had come out of that fine but the three of them were wind-swept and bruised and _burned_. . . 

Except, he wasn't. There was no expected throbbing of pain; it had ceased like nothing had happened, and Mihael's curls didn't have a hair out of place. Droite looked equally unruffled, despite the two direct attacks from their monsters.

It was completely bizarre, and Rei prodded where his burn should be. 

Nothing.

He wasn't complaining, but it settled wrong somewhere in the back of his mind. It was almost like nothing had happened at all.

\---

“Ka110” had been surprisingly receptive to meeting up as soon as possible, and they agreed on a meeting point and a time that same evening. It was only on the walk there that Kotori started to regret her own eagerness, and wondered if maybe she should have taken more time to prepare.

But it was a close walk, and the walkway overlooking the ocean was an open space; she had no time to change her mind. It felt like only moments after she had left her house when she spotted the waiting figure of the person who had offered her information, a dark-haired, dark-clothed man who turned to study her with deep blue eyes as she approached. The look he gave her made her nearly falter once more, piercing and cold—but she steeled herself and met his gaze, prying apart the clench of her jaw to ask, “Ka110?”

“So it’s you.” Too suddenly for her to react, his hand shot out and gripped her by the shoulder. Kotori tried reflexively to jerk back and step away, but his fingers held like a vice, and her thoughts and heart began to race, fueled by panic.

“Who—?”

“Doesn’t matter,” his voice cut through, carving away at her thoughts of escape. “Just hand over your Numbers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone has speculation for what is going to happen in the near or distant future in this fic please comment and tell us, I want to hear all of it, you'll be my new favorite


	4. Chapter 4

Shark’s opponent’s life counter hit zero right as her back hit the ground, blown back by the force of his attack. A hefty blow of reality for the girl who thought not using her Numbers would keep them from him. His voice was as much gravel as the grit that crunched beneath his boot heel as he approached her and fisted the fabric of her shirt. "Now's your last chance. Cough up the Numbers!"

She scrabbled at the rail of the walkway, straining against his grip as she groped for the support to pull herself up off the ground. Her eyes were clear and alert, but she wasn’t listening to him. _Big surprise there_. They never did. She twisted and inhaled, and screamed, "Help! Someone please help! Help! If there's anyone here! I need—!" She was smart enough to not bother pleading with him, but there was no one around to hear her, now, and he wasn’t giving her any more time. He was an asshole but he wasn’t _cruel_ —he wouldn’t draw this out.

She let out a short cry and a full body shudder as he reached out and reached _in_. The white shadow of his hand clenched and wrapped around her core—most cards went in the extra deck, but the Numbers settled down in the _soul_ , to poison and warp and sit where he couldn't get at the damn things, unless they were given up. He pulled and her resistance crumbled, her body crumpling to the ground. Already, her hair had faded a shade paler. 

Her soul alighted on his hands, haloed by a soft glow even in dusk's drawing darkness. 

He stared down at it a moment, face blank in non-comprehension. It came to him slowly, through a fog, because he wasn't sure what to think except a truth he didn't _want_ to think. But realization sloshed through his mind like clear water, clear as the sphere in his hand, until it burst from his mouth a dry heave of cursing.

Damn it all, she lied.

\---

“Where… am I?” asked Droite, pulling Rei out of his thoughts. He offered out a hand to help her up, and tried to smile, though it might have come out a bit shaky.

“You’re at the park,” he told her as she regained her feet. “I’m Shingetsu Rei, and this is Mihael,” he added, glancing at Mihael as he spoke. There were so many things he wanted to ask her, but with him here— “Do you need medical attention?” Rei blurted out abruptly. “He or I could go find someone,” he said, looking again to Mihael, finding himself hoping he would offer. “That fight got rough, so it would be best to make sure we’re all okay.”

As he'd hoped, Mihael took his cue from his look, and nodded. "Don't move, please, so I can find you when I get back. I'll go see if I can find an O-bot with a first aid kit." 

"Thank you," Rei told him gratefully, and waited for Mihael to get out of earshot before turning back to Droite. "You wanted to know what happened, right? Well, I'm . . . not quite sure myself. But, actually, I have a couple of questions to ask you, too. If you answer, maybe things will make sense for the better, for both of us."

She gave him a look, reluctance and combative defensiveness starting to bleed through the confusion. Frustration swelled inside his chest a moment, and he tried again. "It might help you figure something out about what happened to your brother." She jerked her head up, eyes sharpened into slits—just like that, he had her attention. He avoided her gaze, not wanting to be seen as provoking her, and waited, hoping for her to speak first.

"How do you know about my brother?" she asked, wary, but with the bite of a command. 

Swallowing the urge to sigh, he told her, "I don't really. You just mentioned him in the duel. It's fine if you don't trust me, but I can't help if you don't tell me anything. I really _do_ want to help." He glanced up, willing her to understand his earnestness in at least that. It was times like this that made Kotori call him stubborn—he never could leave something be if he thought he could make any difference.

She stared at him through narrowed eyes just long enough for him to be on the verge of giving up and giving her his number for later, in case she changed her mind, when she spoke. "What do you want to know?"

"Before you told me about your brother, you were asking about Numbers. For anyone with Numbers cards to turn them over to you. Do you remember that at all?"

"Numbers?" That alone was enough. "I've never even heard of such an archetype."

"I thought so." After Mihael, confirmation was all he needed—they really didn’t remember. Before he could think better of it, he held up Numbers 28. "But this card is for your archetype, right?" He moved it away when she held up her hands to take it, and then back in closer so she could read the card's name and effect.

Her brow furrowed slightly, a single crease appearing. "Yes. But there's no such card, to the best of my knowledge. An unreleased prototype is interesting, but irrelevant to the matter at hand. I have no idea what you're trying to say with it. Is this meant to be a bribe?" She looked up at him. "For that matter, how is it you know my archetype?"

The faint confusion and wariness on her face was genuine, Rei noted with relief. "I know you don't remember it, but we dueled. You had this card when you played me." He hesitated. "No matter what I say, you're going to keep looking into this, aren't you?" 

Sternly, with a faintly affronted note slipping into her professional demeanor, she confirmed, "My brother wastes away in a hospital bed as we speak, and he is not the only victim. Claiming some trifle of a fight won't deter me. I will pursue this, no matter the cost to myself."

Involuntarily, a shudder ran through Rei. He wouldn't be getting her involved. It wasn't like Mihael, who had forgotten everything regarding the Numbers completely, or Kotori who he'd be dragging in from her normal life. This woman. . . she was already involved, maybe even more deeply than himself. Now that he'd asked, he was sure she'd keep looking, with or without him. He looked down at the card, and put it back in his extra deck. "Then . . . okay. I'm not positive how everything is connected yet, but. . . the Numbers are these strange cards—it seems like they drive the people holding them crazy. But once they're taken, they don't remember any of it. Like you. You wouldn't normally hold someone hostage and demand they give their cards to you. . ." he trailed off, before thinking that well, he really _didn't_ know anything about her, so maybe it was best to confirm that. "Would you?"

"That sounds like a very swift way for a professional duelist to disgrace herself." Which wasn't a yes or a no, but probably meant she wasn't in the habit of it.

"Right. . . So, could you tell me about the people in the hospital? Your brother?" Except—Mihael had returned, and Rei spotted him making his way past the seats to where they still stood on the stage, a faintly puzzled look on his face. Rei shook his head quickly, and corrected himself, "Actually, how about we exchange contact info? We can talk about this later."

Droite followed his gaze and didn't question his change of mind. She nodded and produced a business card, while Rei scrawled his number down and handed it to her. The slips of paper were out of sight by the time Mihael reached them, slightly winded.

"You didn't bring any first aid supplies? Did something happen?" Rei asked, preempting any conversation starter from the other two, not wanting to risk Droite saying something to Mihael, or Mihael questioning what they were talking about while he was away.

"No. I found the O-bot without any trouble. But there was some trouble treating my injuries. . ." He looked sheepish for a moment, and with a small smile admitted, "Because I couldn't find any to treat. And then the O-bot insisted I return the supplies. I suppose it's programmed like that so they aren't stolen. Still, are you two okay?"

Rei had already noticed he wasn't injured, and Droite had no memories of the fight that had inflicted such great damage on them in the first place. Both nodded, and Mihael looked a little happier for it.

"Oh, well in that case, it works out!" Then he stepped away from Droite, nervously, as if just remembering she had held him hostage and attacked them. "Then... shall we be going?"

Rei was glad that he already had her card, so he didn't have to awkwardly invent an excuse to stick around. "It has gotten pretty late. We should go."

Droite nodded, acknowledging him, and touched a hand to her pocket, probably in a signal she would be calling him later. He nodded back, and hurried out of the park, with Mihael.

Through the whole exchange, Durbe had watched without saying a word.

\---

Shark moved through the halls of Heartland Tower at a pace as quick and unapproachable as his legs could muster at a walk. The girl’s soul throbbed against his palm, impossible to ignore no matter how fiercely he tried to think of anything else, and he wanted to get to his “superior” to deliver the news of the failed meetup as fast as he could, before anyone could notice it and ask questions. 

He rounded the corner to the stairwell. Fewer people used it than the elevator, so it gave him less of a risk of being stopped and asked questions.

But luck hadn't been on his side today, so of course, fewer didn't mean it was _empty_. Alit was running up and down between floors, doing laps for one of his dumbass self-appointed training exercises. Maybe a bunch of random suits and researchers would have been better than the always rowdy, always outgoing Alit. But it was too late—the door opened with enough of a sound that he could already see one green eye turn towards him.

Aggravated, Shark began to climb, and Alit jogged to catch up, ignoring like always that his decisive stride and body language was all but shouting for him to be left alone.

"What's the rush? Got some cards there for delivery?" He kept pace, grinning and talking, not at all winded. "If you got any strong ones in the haul this time, let me see!"

"No." Alit at least knew better than to try and take cards out of the hand of a Numbers Hunter, but he _would_ keep bothering him if he wasn't called away. Their different assignments kept them apart often enough that times like now, when Alit could grill him without interruptions or audience, were few and far between. Most the time he'd be grudgingly pleased to have the chatty company—outside Rio, Alit was the closest thing he had to a friend, not that he would ever say as much or it might encourage him—but now he found himself hoping that Alit's D-gazer tattoo would activate and Mr. Heartland would call him away.

But no such luck. "A bunch of weak ones? Or—no way, did you screw up?" He sounded properly disbelieving at the thought of Shark messing up, which only made the situation more annoying. How did someone who didn't even have a Numbers learn of them to make a fake post? Did they have a leak somewhere? It wasn't even _his_ job to deal with the information gathering—no, this screw up was the fault of the absolute _ass_ he had to make his report to.

His irritation tinged his answer. "Have _you_ ever heard of a weak Numbers? They wouldn't be bothering to have me gather the damn things if they were weak."

"Guess not." Alit stretched and considered it before a thought occurred to him, "Aww, man, that guy's going to get everyone on our cases again."

"No shit." Just not quite for the reasons Alit was thinking.

"Sure you don't wanna skive off then, before going to face the music? Me and Gilag are working out this obstacle course, you oughta come give it a whirl!"

"She lets you fuck around with the training area like that?" Shark groused. Halfway there and Alit still wasn't losing interest. He still hadn't gone away, and with him here he couldn't focus. He still didn't know what he was going to do about the girl. If he gave his report, would he be expected to hand her over, even without a Numbers housed inside?

"Sure, you know her. Just give her results and clean up after yourself and Mr. Heartland can suddenly overlook all kinds of things. So are you in?"

“Not a chance.”

“Fine, fine. You’re never up for any fun,” Alit laughed, but accepted his answer. "So if you're reporting a mission failure, what's that shiny thing you got there?"

Maybe if he told him, Alit would give up and go away.

\---

“What was it that you exchanged with Droite?” was the first thing Durbe asked, with Rei standing out in front of his own house after parting ways with Mihael. The question caught him off guard again, but less now, with a better grasp of Durbe’s position—of course he wouldn’t know about phone numbers.

“It’s a way to get in contact with her from a distance,” he explained. “We have each other's information now, so we can talk using our D-gazers even if we're in completely different places."

Curiously, Durbe looked down at Rei’s belt, where his D-gazer lay tucked away. “I have only seen you use it for duels. How does it perform this function?”

“Well, I don’t call people that much. And I turned the phone function off while we were asking around at the park, since I didn’t want to be interrupted.” Rei pulled his D-gazer out and tapped at it to change its settings, reminded by the conversation. “Maybe I could call Kotori and show you—” He reached his voicemail, and the screen flashed _5 missed calls._ “—huh?” His front door swung open suddenly, two steps away from him, and Rei gave a yelp and fumbled to keep from dropping his D-gazer.

“Oh, there you are,” his mother breathed out. “We’ve been trying to reach you.” Rei’s mother’s eyes had seemed to grow softer and softer after his father’s disappearance, and he wasn’t sure he knew them well enough, anymore, to place how they looked at him now. But whether it was sympathy, or concern, or something else like it, it wrenched at Rei’s gut instincts and he knew something was _wrong._ “Something’s happened to Kotori-chan.”

\---

"A soul!? Tell me you didn't go soul-stealing for fun or—"

The scathing look Shark gave him was enough to stop that train of thought dead in relief. Good, Shark hadn't fallen that much off the deep end yet. He continued climbing, and Alit started after him, yelling again, "But— you just said the mission didn't work out! What are you doing with a soul if you didn't get a Numbers!?" Alit had figured the shiny orb was going to be some new photon science thing, another cool gadget that only Numbers Hunters got, not. . . not _that_. 

Avoidant, still walking up the stairs, Shark replied without looking back, "She didn't have one."

Alit grabbed his shoulder, not willing to let it go. Man, he knew Shark's job was more fucked up than his but this was really past the pale. "Don't take souls if they don't have Numbers! You shouldn't even have been fighting her then, that's a job for me or Gilag!"

He paused, turning around to glare and to try to shrug off Alit's grip—of course, Alit was stronger and it didn't work. Irritated at having to answer, or maybe just irritated in general because it was Shark and because he _stole someone's soul_ and was just carrying it around now like he didn't know what to do with it. "Blame the bastard who assigned me to her. It's not _my_ fuck up." 

"Well—yeah, okay, but Shark, man, you've gotta put that back! You can't keep it!" Alit gesticulated wildly, trying to get through to him.

"What—? Put it _back_?" Disbelief colored his voice as Alit nodded.

"Yeah! She wasn't even involved! You put it back, _then_ make your report, no one's going to even have to need to know!" Alit thought it was a good plan, better than whatever Shark's... go upstairs, make a report, and maybe stare at the soul sulking all day. "What are you even planning on doing with it!?"

Shark was silent.

"See, you're not planning squat! Just hand it over!"

"You don't even know how to," Shark replied, but there was no heart in it. Alit was definitely winning this argument, score one for the not creepy soul-stealing team.

"Yeah, and neither do you or you would have put it back already! Come on, it won't hurt to try. No one's even going to know. You'll be in bigger trouble if you show up with it than without!"

" _Fine_." Shark stopped and held it out for Alit, "Just don't make things worse or lose the damn thing."

Instead of being offended, Alit lit up and took the soul gently from him. Shark was bad at trusting people, he knew that. "You got it! You can count on me!" He grinned at Shark, encouraging, to show him he did the right thing.

"Whatever," Shark grumbled, probably embarrassed. They reached the floor Shark needed, and he left through the doorway. 

Alone, Alit looked back down at the glowing sphere in his hands, and let his face fall. He didn't even know whose this was. But he knew how to find out. The Numbers holders all got sent to the same place after Shark got to them, and they were bound to have a new patient just checked in.

\---

_Kotori was in the hospital._

The thought coiled around itself his mind and pushed away all of his other previous concerns. He'd barely stopped to get directions for the way to her room before dashing off. He'd tried so hard to keep her out of everything, but it hadn't protected her. He didn't even know if it was related or not, but the timing was a nasty coincidence. Had she gotten hurt in a fight, like his too-real one against Droite? But he'd been left with no injuries after that, even though he _knew_ he'd been hurt—had she taken his share of the pain, somehow!? He hated not knowing, he hated having no _control_ over this.

Frenzied, anxious, nonsensical worries gnawed at him as he ran towards where he'd been told her room was, past shouted reprimands to not run in the halls. He ignored them, slowing only when he came to right hall, and didn’t stop until he reached the right room.

He burst in through the door without knocking, compulsive apologies already on his tongue, "Kotori, I'm sorry! I wasn't trying to ignore you, I shouldn't have left you alone! Are you okay? I'm sorry, I'm really—"

He dropped his sentence in the middle and stared. He wasn't alone in the room with Kotori. A boy around his age who he didn't recognize stood over Kotori's bed, a glowing sphere in his hands, and under the sickly ethereal light Kotori looked far too pale for someone just admitted, even her hair color dulled.

He shoved his way between the stranger and her bed, shoving him back and spreading his arms and legs wide to block his access and defend Kotori. "Who are you!? What is _that_!? Get away from her!"

The other boy stumbled back, fumbling the orb, and let out a "Shit!" as he dove to catch it before it dropped. Quick reflexes, but his eyes were wide and shocked at the interruption, or maybe-- scared? of dropping what he held.

Durbe floated above, arms crossed seriously as they usually were, and then he leaned in, one hand outstretched to gesture. "Shingetsu. I recognize this light."

And with a shock, Rei did too. It was the light that shone when Durbe took Numbers from opponents they defeated. So—Kotori really _had_ been dragged into his mess. He bit his lip, and nodded. "I do too," he told Durbe, speaking aloud. He didn't need to worry about a Numbers possessed remembering him talking to himself.

"You do what too?" The boy asked, recovering from his scare and still holding the light like it was fragile and would shatter at any moment.

"Nevermind. Why do you have. . . no, more importantly, what are you doing with that Numbers to Kotori?! She. . . she doesn't have anything to do with this! Don't get her involved!" 

"Numbers?!" He looked up from the orb at Rei, his attention focused there for the first time, "Why do you know about those things—and I don't have one! Why would I have those?!"

"You're holding one right now—or, something to do with them!" Rei shouted back, confused. Why was he even bothering to deny it? It didn't look like a card, but there was _definitely_ something weird in his hands.

"This? This isn't a Numbers! He said it was a soul! Man, I just wanted to fix things and get out, and look what a mess it’s turned into! _See if I play the nice guy again!_ " His eyes darted around the room, looking to the windows for an alternate exit, away from the door Rei was blocking. But even in his panic, it was clear from the exasperated undertone to his last promise that it was _far_ from the first time he'd said that.

"Wait—he... a soul?" He glanced up at Durbe, the words plunging like a chunk of ice into his stomach. Slowly, he thought it through aloud, "You don't. . . you didn't, you were with me the whole time," and the strange thought was discarded before he even finished it.

"What? Who are you talking to?!" The stranger shook his head, and his elbows lifted in what may have been the start of some emphatic gesture before he stilled them, wary of dislodging the soul again. "We've never met before!"

"No, I—nevermind. Okay. So. . ." Rei took a deep breath, to calm down. Unlike all the other possessed people he'd met, this one was. . . strange, but he wasn't attacking. Maybe he had another spirit? A spirit that stole souls? But he was trying to give it back. . . He started again, "Is that. . . Kotori's soul?"

Brow furrowed at the change in Rei's tactics, he agreed, "Sure, if that's her name." 

"And you're here to put it back," Rei confirmed.

"Yeah! So let me get on with it!"

Rei really hoped this wasn't a bad idea. Making sure to meet his eyes, he stepped aside. 

"Are you certain this is a good idea, Shingetsu?" Durbe questioned from his side.

"No. But if he tries anything I can catch him, and . . . we'll figure out what to do from there after."

By now, he'd noticed that Rei wasn't talking to him. "You're not buying a single thing I'm saying about not being here to do anything, huh?" But he stepped forward, and placed the sphere on her chest. It had barely left his fingertips before the light dimmed, then brightened, its shape turning golden and seeping into her chest. The faded color to her hair remained, but her skin looked more vital, less transparent than it had only moments before.

Without meaning to, Rei breathed out an exhale of relief—he hadn't even realized he'd been holding his breath—and broke whatever shared moment of hope and concentration had kept the other boy there until then. Immediately, he turned on his heel. "Well, nice meeting you, had a great time, but time for me to ditch! Let's not do this again!" 

"Wait!" Rei reached for his wrist just in time for his mother to enter the room. Immediately, he let his hand fall to his side, resuming the act of being as normal as possible in front of her. The other boy stopped in his tracks, too, and looked up at her like a deer in headlights. He really _hadn't_ wanted to be caught on this, and now one more person had seen him. Rei was pretty sure he wasn't going to run off now, if it meant more people might remember him.

"Is this another visitor for Kotori-chan?" Rei's mother asked, with polite concern. She'd never seen him before, Rei knew.

"Yes," he answered before the other boy could fumble out an excuse that might give his mother more information than he wanted her to hear. Right now, a lie was safer. "He's from school, but in another class."

"Oh. Well, thank you for coming." She might as well have been reading from a script. "I'm sure she appreciates having a visit from...?" Her voice curved the statement into a question, prompting him for his name.

"Alit!" he blurted out, and then continued more smoothly, charming, "Your daughter's a real angel, and—"

" _Alit_ , Kotori's _not_ my sister!" Rei interjected, covering for his mistake. 

"Man, I'd have never guessed, considering your whole guard dog thing for her." 

Behind them, she stirred. Rei and his mother turned their heads to look, and Alit made for the door again, intentionally casual to hide his urgency. "Well, see you later!" he said, and then ducked out.

His mother went to Kotori's bedside, but for a moment, Rei stared at the door. That might not have been Alit's real name, but it was a small lead. He'd remember it. Then he turned away, and joined his mother at Kotori's side.

\---

The report from Ryouga was _not_ news he'd wanted to hear. A loss was acceptable. An information leak was not. 

Ryouga had been dismissed, and he stared at the observation screens of his lab, thinking it over, before sending a summons. "Mr. Heartland, I need to speak to you." He didn't bother clarifying when. The only person whose orders were prioritized above his own were those of Doctor Faker. She wouldn't leave him waiting long.

And sure enough, it was only the time it took her to take the elevator and walk the hall that passed before the door slid open. She'd dispensed with the ridiculous golden get-up she wore as Heartland's beloved mascot, and wore an androgynous indigo pantsuit. He resisted the urge to ask if she planned on handing her wardrobe down along with her identity and role to her son, someday.

"Is there a problem?" she asked as she approached, heels clicking against the floor. "I do not have time for _frivolous_ calls." 

"There is," he confirmed, ignoring her combative manner. "Word of the Numbers appeared online. If there is an information leak, it's your job to shut it down."

"Are you saying the leak came from one of _my_ children?"

"There aren't that many with access to the information." The accusation was clear. "Your personnel are in charge of security. It doesn't matter where the information came from, it matters that it's stopped."

"Oh, is that it? You should learn to make your requests more directly. We're more than capable of shutting down troublesome talk."

Dryly, he spoke, "Then I leave it in your hands."

"Of course." She bowed. "And while I'm here, is there anything else I ought to be aware of?" It wasn't _quite_ an accusation, but her voice was rife with implication. "I will monitor my employees, but about this information leak—we've had reports of missing equipment and experimental files. Forgive me if I am speaking out of line, but this sounds more like a problem in _your_ department than mine. Do make sure to keep an eye on your own people before pointing fingers at mine, _Ilkaitre_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have any comments, questions, concerns, criticisms, or loud incomprehensible noises that only vaguely resemble words you'd like to leave us? If you do, it's always appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just to confirm what might have been unclear last chapter, Ilkaitre is Barian!Kaito! the Barians in Saturnalia are named after stars in [the Pleiades](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades).

Rei joined his mother at Kotori's beside and reached out to clasp Kotori's hand tight, only to release his hold just as quickly and pull away when her eyes began to flutter open. Did they need a doctor here for this? Did losing your soul have side effects the nurses would know about? Was Kotori going to be mad at him for getting her involved in something and then not paying close enough attention to her and the danger? _Rei_ was mad at Rei for that, so he bet she was going to be, too, and he deserved it but he didn't want her yelling while his mother was in the room.

"Mom—should we call a nurse? She's waking up." Rei turned to his mother, not needing to falsify his concern.

She nodded. "Yes. You stay with her, I'll go call one up," she agreed, and left the room. 

He waited a bit to make sure she was gone, his eyes still worriedly fixed on Kotori, before going to the door and jamming it locked. 

"Rei. . . ?" Kotori questioned sleepily from the bed, and he jumped, swiftly returning to her side. "What... Where is this? Am I in a _hospital_?" She sat up abruptly, alarmed. 

There was no reason to deny it. There was no _way_ to deny it. "Yes," Rei admitted. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm all right but—" A flicker of remembrance passed over her expression, and she gasped, grabbing Rei's hand. "You're in danger! This is no time to be talking about me! There's someone looking for Numbers cards and. . ." She trailed off, worriedly. "Rei, what happened? I don't remember what happened after I lost."

He shook his head, avoiding her eyes. "I don't know. I came to the hospital as soon as I heard, but . . ."

"You're blaming yourself, aren't you?" He jerked his head up to stare at her, and she smiled. "I've known you forever. Of course I can tell that much."

He shrugged in a helpless gesture, not fighting the small smile that came to pass fleetingly across his face. "This happened to you because of me. I have the Numbers cards they’re looking for, not you."

"So?" Her jaw was set, stubborn. "It's not your fault someone is going around _attacking_ people, Rei!"

"But—!" he started to protest, but she shut him down with a stern look. She wasn't finished talking.

"But it _is_ your fault that you didn't tell me anything about what's going on." He winced. She did have him there— but in a way, it was reaffirming. She wasn't just letting him off the hook, she was just making sure that he wasn't going to bite off more than he could chew, trying to take responsibility for everything. "You didn't know this was going to happen, but it's really not fair of you to try and leave me out."

He softly explained, "I didn't want you to be in any danger."

"We're friends, aren't we?" This was why Kotori was hard to argue with. He couldn't say no without causing a bigger fight over something that wasn't even true. Of course they were friends, he would never say otherwise. "I worried when you started acting strange, so I just decided to go look by myself. Wouldn't it be better for both of us to just look into it together?"

He looked away, knowing that he was beaten. "It's too late to stop you now, anyway." 

"Rei!" She hit him lightly on the shoulder. "You're so annoying. It's okay to stop being stubborn and say you agree with me."

"I—I wasn't being stubborn!" he objected, annoyed.

Kotori giggled and waved a finger, like to show off the point she scored. "You're _definitely_ being stubborn now."

Durbe nodded as well, floating by her bedside. "Her judgment seems sound.”

Rei glared at the patch of blank air where Kotori couldn't see the spirit, and then quickly looked away— he still didn't want Kotori questioning _that_. He sighed. "Sorry."

She waved his apology off, looking a little happier. "It's okay! You'll just have to make it up to me by including me, from now on. You could even say it's. . ." She smiled, and he knew what her next words were going to be before they were even out of her mouth, "for the best!" 

He smiled back at her use of his catch phrase. "If it's for the best, I can't argue. So, since we're going to work together. . . You said I'm in danger? Can you tell me about the person who wanted the Numbers? And what happened before you were knocked out?"

Kotori nodded and opened her mouth to start explaining, when the door rattled. With an irritable sideways look at the door, Rei got up. What bad timing. He mouthed to Kotori "call me later" and she nodded.

"Oh—sorry, it looks like the door got stuck! I'll fix it!" he called out, and went to the door to let his mother and the nurse in.

\---

Leaving the hospital, Rei had begged out of being driven home. HIs mother had accepted it and told him to be careful when he said he wanted to take the time to walk, to clear his head. And it wasn't _untrue_ —but he did have another objective in mind.

"Durbe, you wanted to see me make a call, right? I'm going to now." Walking on the bridge over the aqueduct this late at night, no one else was around to see him talking to himself, so he didn't bother keeping his voice down talking to the spirit.

"With your D-gazer? Very well. I will observe." Durbe always sounded so serious—he didn't know much of anything now, but what had he been before he died? A scholar or a soldier, maybe. Rei pulled his D-gazer out and pushed away the idle thoughts as he selected Droite's number.

He barely had to wait for the connection to go through, and her face appeared before him on a floating AR screen. "Droite, are you somewhere you can talk right now? Without being overheard, I mean."

"My bedroom. Barring the possibility of it being bugged, I am. Now, will you explain to me what you know and why it requires such secrecy?"

"I will. But first, can you tell me about your brother?" He paused, thinking of a reason she would find convincing. "It will help me figure out what's relevant to the two of you."

She eyed him for a second, but his expression must not have worried her. After a moment, she nodded. "Very well. My brother and I are . . ." She pursed her lips and corrected herself, " _were_ close. We share no blood relation, but we were raised together. We both showed promise at dueling as children, but I surpassed him as we entered our teenage years. While I entered the professional circuit, he expressed interest in rediscovering his roots, and went east.” Her face hardly changed, if at all, but it seemed to Rei like she was becoming increasingly uncomfortable the more she talked. “He became an apprentice to a man here, and took on the name Yamikawa as he was trained in duel monsters. He seemed happy."

She paused, then. Leaning on the rails of the aqueduct, Rei waited for a few seconds for her to continue, but when it became clear she wouldn’t, he shook his head. "Is that all you know? But what happened to him, then?"

". . . Sometime before the incident occurred, his behavior became erratic. In our calls he would express frustration at his own power being weak. Eventually, he told me he found a card that would bring him strength beyond my own, and his master's. He called less frequently from that point on, until instead I was contacted by a hospital to inform me that he had fallen into a coma."

Rei nodded once again. "I see. The card he had, did he call it a Numbers?"

"Yes."

"Then it's the same. It's... Numbers cards are dangerous, I think. When you fought me, that time you don't remember—it was because you had one. But when you lost, I took it, so. . ." 

"You still seem sane," she remarked. 

"Yeah." He shrugged, smiling a bit helplessly, and reached up unthinking to curl his fingers around the key. "They don't seem to affect me much."

"Convenient." 

"Um—wait, please don't suspect me!" he yelped. "Or, actually you can if you want, but there's someone going around taking Numbers cards! I—my friend was in the hospital too! She was attacked for having one, but. . . she didn't. So she woke up, but…” How was Rei supposed to explain the incident with Alit? He didn’t even understand all the details—like how Kotori’s _soul_ had somehow been taken from her in the first place, or what connection that had to the Numbers. It seemed easier to simplify it. “She said there was someone suspicious around before. It's not much but. . ." He looked up and made eye-contact with her, nervously.

"It's somewhere to start,” Droite agreed. “Name and description?"

"Alit. About my age, but a little shorter than me. She said he looked Mediterranean, maybe? With brown hair that curls up at the ends and covers one eye."

"I’ll keep a watch out," Droite told Rei, and he held in a private moment of celebration. He had help looking for him—an adult from the professional circuit! She probably would hear big dueling news far before he would.

"Okay. Do you mind letting me know if you hear anything, since, my friend and all?" he asked, shyly, and she fixed him with a stare.

"If you have Numbers of your own, you are in far more danger. If he shows his face, you _will_ let me know. Both for your own sake, and so I may have vengeance for my brother. Agreed?" Rei stared at her, wide eyed and she prompted him again. "Are we agreed?"

"Oh—yes!" 

"Then this conversation is finished for the time being. I will keep you informed, and you will do the same. Good night." She disconnected before Rei could do more than nod, and was left staring at the deactivated lens of his D-Gazer. 

It was quiet for a moment, before he took it off and smiled up at Durbe. He had help—really enthusiastic help. He was going to have to be careful to make sure he was one-hundred percent on his facts before he told her anything, or things might get out of hand. But there was still a small spark of hope and excitement in his chest, that just _maybe_ he could figure this out and get the cards back for Durbe. 

But he didn't voice any of that, and just held out the D-Gazer. "So, did you see, Durbe? That's how you make a call."

\---

As Rei lay in bed to rest, a time when he proved to be entirely unresponsive to conversation, Durbe retreated to the dimension within the key to sort out his thoughts.

Within the gold interlocking gears, he stood before the Numbers. Their resting places climbed upwards in a daunting wall of embossed numerals; the four they had so far recovered, glowing with power and memories, stood out starkly amidst the other darkened plaques. He put his hand to one still unlit, and felt it cold and unresponsive beneath his fingertips.

So many of the answers he needed were still far away.

For now, Shingetsu was invaluable to him. Strangely nervous and impulsive in turns, he was difficult for Durbe to understand, but the longer he spent in his company the easier it was to predict him. Shingetsu would not talk to him in public unless no one he knew was at risk of hearing, but whenever he found a suitable opportunity, he would talk Durbe through the answers to any of his questions to the best of his abilities. 

Abilities that sometimes fell short. Durbe would have no hope of navigating through the world around them without him, but Shingetsu had only just begun to learn dueling, and knew nothing other than what they'd found together of the Numbers and all that came attached to them. With as skittish as his ally was, Durbe hesitated to share the memories he had already regained with his partner until he understood them himself. If the confusion they caused Durbe was great, the distress they caused Shingetsu would be even greater.

No. He would not burden his ally. He would aid Shingetsu to the best of his abilities in furthering their shared cause; he would not weigh him down.

Decided in that, he reached out to one of the lit stones—39. The Number for Hope. He knew this one well. It contained the memories and knowledge he had held from the start: the mechanics of dueling, his name, the importance of winning. There was nothing more to be gleaned from it.

Beside it, Numbers 17 Leviath Dragon, was another he already understood in full. It had provided him with the knowledge of the nature of the Numbers, scattered pieces of his memory. Parts of himself. It raised the question of how they had become scattered, and how long they had been parted, but provided no further answers. He didn’t dwell on it any longer.

The most recently acquired Numbers, from the duelist Droite. . . He didn't know what to make of Number 28's memory. It whispered to him of exile, of a sundered world. The rejected power of Chaos had formed its own world, its own people. Barians. 

But the world he saw now was quite whole. Barians? As far as he had seen, they had no presence here. Shingetsu would surely know if a war had split the world in twain, and if it had been reunited again. But if no such cataclysm had occurred, it was yet another concern to eat at Shingetsu's spirit. It was something he would worry over, that an unknown force with powers beyond their Numbers was moving through the world where he could not see it. No. He wouldn't share this with Shingetsu until he had answers, or he saw evidence of the Barians at work.

Or until he had an answer for 96.

The number glowed innocuously where it had been inset amongst the others. Durbe had not touched it since it had been first regained. The memory it contained, its own _existence_ was not something Durbe could explain. The Number's power roiled with chaos, the forbidden and exiled power. This Numbers should not be. It should never have been. Its presence alone foretold ominous things to come.

Why was _this_ part of him?

He had to know. For his own sake and for Shingetsu’s, he had to know.

\---

After the late call and the craziness of the past few days, Rei was dead tired when he woke up at his usual time. 

"Shingetsu. You have classes, do you not?" Durbe asked as Rei turned muzzily to face his blinking alarm. 

"Yes. I'm getting up." He really wasn't used to staying up late, but there was nothing to be done for it. With Kotori's hospitalization, he at least had an excuse if anyone asked why he was out of it, even if he knew she was all right now. That thought in mind, he sleepwalked through breakfast and the rest of his morning routine, and out the door. 

He probably could have walked to school with his eyes closed—if only he hadn’t yawned and bumped into a stranger that should have been impossible to miss, dressed all in white with a shock of wild red and blond hair, and been abruptly reminded why that wasn't a good idea.

"Watch it!" he said, shoving Rei away.

"Oh! Excuse me, sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going!" Rei apologized, bowing.

"Nii-sama, don't bully anyone—oh! Rei-kun!" Mihael jogged up in his school uniform, trying to catch up with the person who was _apparently_ his brother. "Nii-sama, _especially_ don't bully him. If you do, then I won't be able to count on anyone to share their notes with me!"

His brother laughed, waving a hand. "Oh? Chris won't be happy to hear you're struggling in school, now will he, Mihael?"

"And that's why you won't be bullying my friends—so he won't have to. You dislike hearing his lectures more than anyone, even if they're not at you."

Mock annoyed, he clicked his tongue. "Tch. They don't _start_ at me, you mean. He'll find _some_ way to blame it on me— _setting a bad example_ , I bet. Fine! Your friend gets off easy _this time_." He swept into a large bow to Rei and Mihael, shooting them a smirk as Mihael took Rei's wrist and pulled him forward. "You're granted clemency just this once!"

Mihael smiled brightly, like it was a joke. "Of course! Thank you, we appreciate it!" and kept pulling Rei forward until his older brother was out of sight.

"That's... your brother? He seems. . ." Scary. Bad tempered. Not like you at all. In his sleep-deprived state he couldn't think of a single word to say that was even half complimentary, and trailed off.

Even so, Mihael understood and nodded, his smile dimming with slightly wry humor. "Well, he is, a little. But he's not as bad as it seems, either. I can always count on him to do his best and remember what's important. He's a little overprotective sometimes, too."

Rei didn't get it, but he smiled back. "I see. . . It sounds nice."

"Shingetsu," came Durbe's voice behind him, soft. Rei glanced around but he couldn't see anything that the spirit would be trying to warn him about. Not the conversation, surely? It was so nice and mundane.

"Sometimes," Mihael answered. "Most times he's too noisy to call nice, but the rest of the time I like him enough." Mihael was smiling, and probably joking. Something was dripping somewhere. Brothers that liked to tease each other... Rei's family never really did that sort of thing, so he just accepted it. He could still hear dripping. Maybe it was more like friends, like him and Kotori.

"Shingetsu!" Durbe's voice was more insistent, a strange strangled quality pressing in on it. 

This time, he turned to look.

Dark tendrils swept up, dripping, as an intravenous line of sludge fed into Durbe's form. It blackened him, solidified—he was casting a shadow. Alarmed, Rei's head snapped to the side and saw Mihael had followed his gaze. But no, now wasn't the time to worry about what he was thinking. Not when Durbe was— _something_ was happening to him. The pained noises heralded nothing good.

"What is it?!" he called out, his voice pitching higher in panic.

"R...nnggh…! I— This is—" Durbe's reply was garbled, shuddering with the effort to speak, until abruptly he stopped. His brilliant glowing eye shut as the light bled out of his form, then shot open again, pitch black and manic. The laughter and words that came from his mouth resounded with the timbre of Durbe's voice but sounded nothing like him. " _Finally_. It took you an eternity to remove that key, but _now_.” He paused for effect, or else just lost himself to his snickering, before he spread his arms wide and reared back. "Now, let's begin!" Rei was so transfixed by the disturbing grin that didn't belong anywhere on Durbe's face that he didn't realize he needed to run until the tendrils that had warped Durbe had crossed halfway to him.

By then, running didn't do any good. They lashed his wrists and ankles and constricted him by the ribs, hoisting him up, and held fast against his struggling. This wasn't good, this wasn't good at all. He kicked again, writhing midair with all his might but it did no good, and the _thing_ wearing Durbe's body shook him, jarring him to the side. They just narrowly missed—Mihael was still there! "Mihael! Run—find help!"

Frozen in what Rei had thought was indecision, Mihael looked up at Rei, then returned to scanning the ground. He'd been mouthing words since the corrupted Durbe spoke, repeating them, and now he focused in on Rei's chest. "Rei, your key is gone! That must be what happened, but it isn't anywhere! I don't know where it could have gone to, there's not any place or anyon—" Mihael didn't complete the word. "My brother must have—Rei, I'll bring it back! Please hold on!" He promised, and then dashed off.

Fearful, Rei looked back at Durbe, not wanting him to go after Mihael, but the spirit smirked, wholly relaxed and unworried as he swept the hood of Durbe’s cloak from his head. "Well, then, we're on a time limit. Are you going to cooperate and give in?"

"Cooperate? Give in?" Rei had no idea what it wanted but this—this was his every fear of spirits come to life. His heart was pounding, and all his thoughts were colored with terror. He didn't want to contemplate this, even as fear sped his mind to visions of gruesome fates. _(Being crushed, his ribs collapsing inwards and piercing his lungs. A tendril wrapping about his neck to hang him, leaving his spine whole as he struggled futilely against the last of of his breath leaving his lungs, a long drag towards death. One turning sharp and piercing him through; the two at his ankles dragging him deep into the earth for a premature burial, the whole mass of blackness smothering him, choking him as they reached inside to hollow him out and leave him a skin for the spirit to take and wear)_ He shook his head to clear it, and shouted with all the strength he had left, to keep his voice from shaking. "I don't even know what you want!"

"How about we see what you have to give?" He drew Rei in closer, shocking a shriek out of him as Durbe leaned in, and brushed his fingers over his chest. "Reveal to me the darkness in your heart!"

That didn't clarify _anything_. If anything his situation was worse, right within arms reach of it. What was the spirit going to do when Rei didn't know? Should he make something up? Should he—

His head tilted up on its own, looking Durbe in his mismatched eyes. 

"My father isn't a missing person. I lied to the police when they asked if he left the house alone. I lied about the alibi."

Oh fuck. He _couldn't_ be talking about this. Horrified, he thought _shut up_ desperately at himself. The spirit smiled grotesquely wider, the smirk already too wide for Durbe's serious face, and gestured for him to continue. "Go on."

"He was awful to us. Really ill-tempered. And when Mom came home alone. . . she just said it was 'for the best'." He could feel his lips shaping a smile around the words, automatically. The way he always said it. He felt very, very sick. "We wouldn't need as many bandages anymore. And we don't."

Delight was clear in the spirit's voice. "Your mother, the murderess! My, my, does it run in the family? Your father the brute, your mother—"

"No!" Rei interrupted, this time of his own accord. "Don't—don't speak badly about her! She didn't want to. She was afraid for me! Because. . . because I'm a coward, that just talks about getting along and doing my best for others because I don't know what to do when someone's mad! I'll just take it, rather than cause a fuss! I would have never done anything! She just wanted to protect me!"

" _Never done anything?_ ” coaxed the shadow, Durbe’s deep voice lilting unsettlingly high with a sick glee. “Aren’t you talented at saying whatever people want to hear from you, _being_ what they want to _see_ —”

"No!" Softer, hurriedly, he added, "No, I wouldn't have. I _couldn't_ have. He _terrified_ me. I was always too scared."

“Scared of what, _Shingetsu_? Scared of _him_?”

He wished he was looking anywhere but that starveling gaze that drank up his every word. _Yes_ he thought, but couldn't get the word out. 

"Answer me!"

He flinched. "You don't believe me anyway!" he pleaded. "That's why you keep pushing; it's the same! I don't—" He sobbed even though he knew the shadow would have no sympathy for him. He twisted in place, trying to escape his bonds. "I don't want to talk about this! I know what you're trying to do. I don't want to, I don't—!"

A piercing impact through his chest choked off the rest of his protests. Like watching it through a movie lens, he saw the shadow draw his hand back, and then thrust it forward, and _through_. Fingers invaded past his ribcage, insubstantial enough that the bone served as no shield but every part of his body and brain screamed against it, wrong, _wrong, **wrong**_. Corrosive as memory and stomach acid, the shadow's digits wrapped around and pressed into his heart. 

"Why don't you finish what you started?" It wasn't a suggestion. "I'll ask you one more time: scared of _him_?"

He couldn't focus, the darkness sinking in and twisting truth into his words. "No. I _wish_ I was. He would have been _proud_ if he knew how much I hated him back. The things I thought to myself. . . _that's_ what terrified me. The things I dreamed of. . ." He laughed, vaguely aware of the salt water dripping down his cheeks. "If he had any idea, he _never_ would have pushed me so hard. The whole while I tried _so hard_ not to hate him! If I ever let myself, I could have been. . . I would have been just like him! I hated him so much, I couldn't stand it! I’m not—I'm not like him!"

"Instead you play at being a snivelling weakling. A coward, but the only thing you fear is _yourself_. People always repress their _real_ feelings! Wearing that mask of purity, the darkness in your heart had to be simmering beneath, just _waiting_ to boil over and overflow!" 

"It's not a mask! It's me, _I'm me_! I don't have to act on it! I don't want to, that's what makes us different! E-even if I'm a coward! I'd rather be a coward!" Rei shouted, and then flinched. The shadow's grip tightened around Rei's heart, and his lungs spasmed. Air— he needed air—

The shadow taunted again, exultant in his position of power. "Would you? Don't you wish you could stand up to me and beat me down _right now?_ But now it would be too little, too late! You should have challenged me and fought me off as soon as you saw me. Then you wouldn't be in this mess. But then again, you say you _hate_ fighting. Except that isn't true, is it? You know you'd like it if you let yourself, Shingetsu."

Darkness encroached on his vision. He could barely speak from coughing, but he—he couldn't fight this thing.

He hung his head in a nod.

The vice in his chest loosened its hold the slightest bit, and he could breathe again. With victory etched into every feature, he leaned in close to Rei, and Durbe’s voice, barely slipping through Rei’s heaving, gulping breaths, thrummed, " _Good_. Now, let yourself."

Everything went black.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day, a nurse came to clear Kotori to leave the hospital.

“But don’t do anything too strenuous,” she cautioned, looking utterly mystified. “We still don’t know what caused that episode, so even if you feel fine right now, you shouldn’t push yourself, okay?”

“I understand,” Kotori agreed, smiling, even though she felt sure the cause had nothing to do with her physical health.

She should have just gone home right away, but she wanted to walk, to sort out her thoughts and clear her head, until eventually her wandering found her facing the ocean, standing at the aqueduct where she met her attacker.

The person she had spoken to online and the one she dueled had behaved completely differently. “Ka110” had seemed articulate and careful, straightforward but still considerate of the things she said to him. They’d picked the aqueduct together, because it would be more convenient to her. She hadn’t expected anything like who she got, with harsh, clipped speech, and dark, furious eyes.

Could it really have been just an act? It wasn’t like Kotori still believed in Ka110—but could the person she dueled really have put up a front like that? He'd been so obviously angry, and his motives had been so violently clear. He'd demanded her surrender of the cards she didn't have, not even following through on his false premise to at least _see_ her supposed card first, to snatch and run off with it. If it was an act, it wasn't one he was capable at all of following through on in person. It didn't seem like a case of him being a different person online and offline—it seemed like a case of him being a different person altogether. 

But that didn't help her understand what was going on at all.

Kotori hadn’t even worn her deck in a holster for a full day before getting crushed by her own amateur level of skill. She couldn’t do _anything_ in the match; her hand and field had been wiped bare only a few turns in, and no matter how she struggled she could never get a foothold to recover. She had been kidding herself when she had picked up her cards, as if she could do anything with them the way she was now. In a duel she was helpless. What she could do—all she could do—

All she could do was look for more leads.

She blew her pale bangs out of her face—maybe she would dye it later, so she didn't have to explain why most of her hair had gone white overnight—and contemplated heading home. She could get back on the forum again, maybe. She'd have to be careful with her posting if she didn't want into the same trouble again, but she could read over them. Maybe check if any users had gone inactive suddenly after posting about acquiring a new card? It was the only lead she could think of.

Fledgling plan in mind, she turned away from the waterfront, and her breath caught in her throat as she turned right towards a figure staring at her. The features she found herself faced with overlaid in her mind with the boy's from before: sharp eyes set in a young face, the contours matching his almost exactly—so exactly, she nearly missed the obvious. These eyes were red, and this person was a girl. 

Startled, she took a step back. "You scared me!"

"Do you want an apology?" The other girl didn't seem the slightest bit inclined to give one, despite her offer. "And here I thought you came back to face your fears. But it _is_ too late for second thoughts."

"Back—!?" Kotori reassessed the girl in front of her, and tensed, ready to run. She learned from last time. She definitely wasn't ready to duel anyone that was as good as the boy from before. "How do you know about that?! And what do you mean by that!?"

"I already frightened you, didn't I?" Ignoring Kotori's tension, the girl took her place next to her on the rail, and spoke, looking out towards the ocean, blankly. It was bizarre. Despite everything, she didn't seem to have any ill-will. She didn't seem to have much of anything—she was impossible to get a read on, like she wasn’t even closed off, just… blank. Somehow, it seemed like there was nothing there. "Ryouga really is an awful worrywart. He kept me up almost all night with his fidgeting."

"R. . . Ryouga?" Kotori thought she knew who the other girl meant, but the conversation was so strange she suddenly didn't feel sure of anything. She was being so conversational and casual, but every word was completely without inflection, and she didn't even bother to look at Kotori. Kotori was still on edge, but she wasn't going to run—not if she wasn't in danger _yet_. She'd come here looking for answers, hadn't she? And answers had apparently walked right up to her.

"My brother. You can't tell? We really do look alike." She turned her head to face Kotori again, and after barely a moment, Kotori nodded. Her coloring was different, but the shape of her sharp eyes were unmistakable.

No. She definitely couldn't relax, if this girl was involved with that. Kotori took another step back, edging towards the end of the bridge, where she'd have more ways to run. "Who are you?” she plied, voice straining higher and stronger. “Who are _both_ of you?"

"Isn't it clear?" She _had_ to be intentionally obscure, but it was like she'd forgotten the teasing tells, no mischievous smile on her blank face. "I'm his sister. And he's the boy that dueled you here the other day."

For as clear as she was being Kotori might as well have been speaking to someone in another language. Frustration overrode her remaining fear, which had already mostly faded to wariness, confusion dulling it out. "Geez! I know that! I meant, I wanted to know more!"

"That isn't going to serve you very well. But you already knew that, didn't you? Being the kind of girl that goes right back to where you were attacked isn't very bright. It's going to get you in trouble." 

"Is that a threat?" Another step back, in retreat, but this time the other girl took a step, following her.

"Accusing a stranger is mean. I'm here to help you, you know. I don't want to have to listen to Ryouga sulking. Coming straight back here and demanding information, you fit right into the same mold as my brother. You're both far too stubborn. But the actions you're taking aren't compatible at all." 

"Do you mean. . ." Kotori thought through her words. If she was equating Kotori's coming back with her brother's stubbornness, "Do you mean he's going to come after me again?" She thought she felt the start of a tremble in her legs and held the railing tight, to hide her fear and sound defiant.

"He won’t need to go out of his way for it, if you walk right back into his path yourself. If you don't change your mind, you'll be nothing more than a victim, just like before." 

Something about the way that calm voice stated it like truth made Kotori mad. "I won't be his victim!"

Her red eyes looked Kotori up and down, assessing. "Is that so? In any case, you'll certainly end up clashing with him again."

"Is that all you came here to say?" Kotori stated defiantly.

"Hmm . . . I wonder, is there anything else." She looked at Kotori, studying her. "No, that's all for now. If you end up being worth more words than that, you can look forward to another visit." 

"How could you—you're being really rude!" Kotori shouted, unable to stop herself. 

Then, as if Kotori hadn't spoken at all, the girl turned around, away from Kotori. "Well, then. If that's all." Just like that, she started walking off, like the conversation was over.

"No, that's not all! You haven't told me anything!" Kotori suddenly regretted the distance she put between them, the extra steps as she rushed forward to grab her wrist and demand more information—

  


When she reached the spot the other girl stood, her hand was left grasping nothingness. Before Kotori's eyes, she had vanished completely. Kotori closed her fingers on her palm anyway, letting the air pass between her fingers. Another strange thing in a line of strange things that happened since she had given Rei the key. She didn't—couldn't—doubt the weird girl's words. If she continued to look into this, she'd meet that boy again.

The last time, she really had been his victim, powerless before his dueling skills. She hadn't been able to help Rei at all—she hadn't accomplished a single thing. If she kept looking, it might happen again. Even though she'd mouthed off to that weird girl, she really wasn't confident in herself.

But if she did nothing, she _definitely_ wouldn't accomplish anything. She was sure that if she stayed by Rei’s side, more trouble would come, trouble she'd be just as helpless against. But she wasn’t about to abandon him. At the very least she had to _try_ to prepare. 

She looked down at the closed fist of her hand and held it close to her chest, in promise.

\---

Their most recent assignment had gone well—guard a new shipment of cards, beat up anyone that tried to take them, and turn in the would-be thieves when they were done. It was the way things were _supposed_ to go. It wasn't strictly on the up-and-up, Alit knew, since by all rights him and Gilag should still be in school, but he liked the work. It got his blood pumping, and at worst, injuries healed.

Shark's soul-stealing thing went way past that. Them getting hurt was one thing, hurting innocent people was another. Neither the girl nor the guy with her in that hospital room seemed like the type to deserve being one of their targets. 

Alit wasn't at all a brooder, like Shark was, so he'd barely made sure no one was around to listen before he opened his mouth. "Hey, Gilag." Alit nudged him in the side to see if he’d answer first; Gilag wasn't always in the mood to talk. If he was watching a Duel Idol programme or thinking about one of them, trying to get his full attention was _hopeless_.

"Yeah, Alit?"

Okay, listening, that was good. "So, you know how I was late yesterday and you had to clean up the obstacle course mess and I said I'd owe you one? Well, there was this girl. . ."

"A girl, huh?" Gilag perked up, and elbowed him. "Huuuh? Was she cute?"

"Aaah, man, no! Now isn't the time for gossiping! This is serious; she was soulless!" 

"That bad?"

Taken aback, Alit started to defend the girl's character, saying, "No, she was as lovely as pale Snow White—" before he cut himself off and shook his head. Damnit, he was trying not to get distracted, here! "And in the same kinda cursed sleep! _That_ kind of soulless!"

"That does sound serious." That at least seemed to impress the situation on Gilag, who stopped elbowing him meaningfully and was paying attention properly now. "So how did you get mixed up in it?"

"Shark."

Gilag grimaced. Alit aside, most of Mr. Heartland's crew avoided the twins like a particularly creepy plague. "I should have known. Other than that guy, who else could it be? Besides his sister."

Usually, Alit would argue the point or at least point out that the twins had the looks to make up for their personalities, but right now his heart wasn't in it. "Yeah, yeah. It was Shark. But Shark on an assignment! Doesn't that strike you as fucked up, him stealing some girl's soul?" 

"You're the one that's friends with him," Gilag said roughly, not meeting his eyes.

"Yeah, I am! So I'm worried, that he's getting these kinda screwed up orders! It's not like he up and decided to do it on some whim yesterday morning, you shoulda see him!" Not that Shark liked being seen when he was torn up about something. "Or not. Actually, he'd probably ramp up the asshole to cover up for it, but that's not the point. You get my point, right?"

"That management is up to something that he's neck-deep in?" Gilag shrugged, and crossed his arms. "That isn't new. Numbers Hunting has always been a do whatever it takes deal, and that guy. . . That's the problem with him." He sounded uncomfortable as he went on, "Orders are orders and nothing to be done about it, but he doesn't screw up or request a division transfer. Just keeps taking down whatever gets in his way. Don't know how you can be easy-going around that kind of guy."

"Well—c'mon, he has his sister to worry about too!" Alit changed the subject before Gilag could make a retort to that too, saying, "Anyway, the point is the top brass is definitely being all kinds of shady, worse than usual! Shark was ordered after a girl who didn't even have a Numbers!" 

"No Numbers?" 

"Yeah! That kinda stuff is usually our jobs! But even if she _had_ one, it still wouldn’t sit right with me." He scowled. "Mr. Heartland is mostly reasonable, right? But this messed up business Ilkaitre keeps sending Shark out on sets my teeth on edge—there's gotta be something we can do about it."

He waited to see if Gilag would challenge the _we_ part of it, but even when he shook his head, he didn't say Alit should take care of it on his own. "We're not the good guys here either, Alit." 

"Yeah, but just because we're bad guys doesn't mean we've got to be the worse-than-we already-are-guys!"

Gilag stood there silent, looking frustrated as he towered over Alit, but eventually settled on a response. “So what are you trying to say?” Gilag asked, more like an accusation. “Do you want us to go against Ilkaitre?” 

Alit scratched the back of his head, glancing away. “I hadn’t really planned up to that part yet.”

Gilag threw one arm to the side, fist clenched. "Alit! Don't underestimate him! Ilkaitre's not a problem you can solve with a fist in the face!"

"He's not going to get solved at all if you just decide we can't do anything! At least I want to try!" Alit shot back, defensive.

"Come up with a plan first! When you've got one, then we'll talk!" 

"Fine! Just wait, I'll come up with one! And then there's no excuses left for you not to get on board with this!" Alit punched one of his hands into the the palm of his other, showing his determination.

"Yeah, _when_ you come up with one." Gilag agreed.

Alit nodded, a grin back on his face at the tentative promise of comradery in his rebellion, but internally after a few seconds what he'd just promised to do registered. Ah, man, why did it have to be _plans_? Counter-strategies were one thing—he knew how criminals moved, so predicting and preempting them, getting his retaliation all lined up was no big deal, but he wasn't a big mastermind schemer. He was bad at accounting for random elements, even if he could handle closed situations. _And_ unlike dealing with petty criminals, he had no idea how that boss of Shark's thought about anything. But, hey, on the bright side, Gilag had agreed. Could be worse. His grin was firmly in place, as he asked, "So, hey, you mind covering for me again? I think I've got a lead on where to ask to figure out more about those shitty orders."

"Go ahead." Gilag said. "I'll hold down the fort."

He was definitely still reluctant, but he'd said yes with his mouth even if his closed posture told a different story, and verbal was all the confirmation Alit needed. "Thanks! I'm going to owe you two, now!" he called back, as he dashed off.

As Alit jogged off down the corridor and Gilag watched him go, Alit heard his fading voice mutter, "It's a lot more than that," before he rounded the corner and couldn't hear him anymore.

The girl should have gotten out of the hospital by now, but her files would still be around. Whatever reason she was targeted, whatever Alit was going to do about it—it wouldn’t hurt to learn a thing or two about her.

Heartland had plenty of vehicles to spare, but Alit ran. Out the doors, down the streets; the hospital was close and the ground was solid under his thick-soled boots. He kept off the main roads, but even the side streets had their own afternoon foot traffic, and with his mind set on his goal, he didn't even stop to think that the first cry of “Hey!” from behind him might be directed at him.

“Hey, wait for me! Hey—Alit!”

But someone calling his name was impossible to miss. There weren't even that many people that knew his name to call him by it—aside from Heartland staff, he almost never got to really get out and socialize. And from an unfamiliar voice, that was doubly alarming. He whirled, expecting a guard to drag him back, but who he saw instead didn't seem to be much of an improvement. The red-head from the hospital, catching up rapidly, and Alit could already tell he had no hope of losing him, not unless he figured out how to sprout wings in the next few seconds. 

Ah, well, if there was anything Heartland had taught him, it was that if he pretended he didn't have any idea anything was wrong he might get lucky and get away with it. He turned around and waved. "Yo. You wanted something?" 

The other boy reached him, panting lightly, and held onto his wrist— probably trying to make sure he didn't change his mind and book it. "It's about the other day. After you gave Kotori her soul back, she got better."

Score one for team Alit! Was his inner goodness _finally_ getting some of the credit it deserved? He grinned, relaxing a little, and put his hand down. "You just wanted to give me an update?" 

"Well. . . no." Dammit. "I wanted to know why you had her soul in the first place."

"That's a long story." Alit's eyes swept the area, looking around. "Look, do we have to talk about this junk here? People can hear." Which was a concern, but mostly because he didn't want to get chewed out for leaving witnesses if he had to fight him off. 

Instead, the red-head's eyes narrowed, and he stood his ground, stubbornly. "You're avoiding the question. Is it because you took it?"

"What—no way! Why would I take her soul just to put it back!? C'mon, it wasn't me!" Alit immediately defended himself.

"Then how did you get it?" His eyes widened at Alit beseechingly, and he felt a stab of guilt. Shit, he really did have a good point. And it wasn't that he was doing anything wrong—asking around out of concern for a friend was the opposite of a bad motive. But Alit couldn't just go ahead and out Shark. He was doing it for someone important to him, too.

"That's—look, I don't know! It was just given to me, I don't know anything more than that!"

The grip on his wrist tightened painfully, " _Who_ gave it to you?"

"Ow—just some scientist! It was just a job—"

" _You're lying_ ," he hisses, lowly, and the the grip on his wrist was like a vice. Alit felt the bones grind together in building painful pressure, like they might snap at any moment. "Don't you remember?" He threw his free arm up defensively like he was trying to block his face from view, and his voice high with imitated panic, with a mocking edge dug into it, "I just wanted to fix it and get out. See if I play the _nice guy_ again!" The acid he put in the words 'nice guy' could have eaten through a bank vault. Alit recoiled away from just that mocking but the grip on his wrist held fast. Since when was anyone other than Gilag stronger than him? This wasn't right. Was this really the same guy from the other day?

"What the hell is wrong with you!?" Alit shouted and witnesses be damned, if a fight was what this guy wanted then he'd learn he picked on the wrong guy. He drew his free arm back for a punch, and nailed him square in the jaw.

But the grip didn't get weaker, and the redhead turned his face back to Alit and _smiled_. A chill spilled down Alit's spine at the sight of it—something was definitely wrong, here. Shark, what the hell kind of people did you start trouble with?

"What's wrong with me?" He tilted his head, repeating the words softly, before a grin lit up his face. "Well, if you're curious. . . showing you would be _for the best_!"

\---

The sting in his face after that blow was _really_ laughable. He couldn't help smiling—just as he'd always known, he always _could_ be stronger. It hurt, it ached, stirring with the beginnings of a bruise but it just didn't matter at all. There was nothing frightening now, after his father. Alit was half his father's size. This was _nothing_. 

And thanks to the Number glowing a brand on his neck, his fear of himself was nothing too. It was a feeling he never wanted to let go, this happiness, the roiling excitement at the prospect of violence and victory coming in on its heels. A coward like him getting to be brave, it was unthinkable.

"Whoops!" He laughed lightly and cocked his head. "Sorry, sorry. Did you think I was going to be easy pickings? My bad, I didn't mean to give the wrong impression! This time I'll be clearer." He dropped the pitch of his voice to gravel paving over mania and pulled Alit in closer, speaking right into his ear, his lips a breath away from brushing it. "I'm _not_!"

Alit struggled back against him, leaning back as far out of Rei's grasp as he could get with Rei's hands holding his wrists in place. "But you're the one that started it! Look, if you want me to leave you alone, that's great because that's what I wanna do too! Let go, and I'll be right outta here!"

"But you didn't give me what I want." Rei pointed out. "Just some scientist isn't a _name_. Think about how much trouble and time it would take to go through all the scientists!" 

Alit looked at him like Kotori looked at a scorpion, the one time one had gotten into the classroom—with intermingled horror and disbelief because this was _Heartland_ and they weren't supposed to have _scorpions_ here. It wasn't fair for Alit to look at him like that. If Alit wanted his words to do any good, he would have to know that Rei would have had to go through all of them. It would be better for him to just give _one_ name. There was no reason for the disbelief in that look.

"Go through all of the scientists? That's crazy! You're crazy!" Alit still was trying to get away from him.

Rei sighed. "That wasn't what I asked about either." It looked like Alit wasn't going to be helpful without convincing.

Well, that was okay too. He knew just _how_ to convince him. Not broken fingers. The other way. He released his grip with one hand and Alit stumbled back, sudden recoil from his attempt to escape succeeding, but he wasn't going to get very far. Rei pulled out his deck and set his disk. "Okay, then. We'll duel, and when I win, you have to answer me for real!"

The world crumpled like a discarded sketch around them, and Rei grinned amidst the encroaching shadows. It was different from the closed world Droite's card had created, the sweltering jungle where he'd run and hid and had turned it against her. This world was a silver floor shining in the dark, a single floating dais in an ocean of dark mist, obscuring if there was anything below in blackness and shadows. It was a field of pitch black night with nowhere to hide.

They were clearly outlined, and it was just as clear they had no escape routes. It was just him, Alit, the platform below.

And, slowly taking visible form, Black Mist hovering at his side, replacing Durbe, the spirit he'd grown used to seeing at his shoulder. 

Alit whirled about, eyes wide and his head whipped wildly back and forth at the darkened world. Rei laughed and Alit started, like he just remembered Rei was his opponent and not the shadows around him. He cursed a quick _dammit_ and set his duel-disk, and the skin around his eye lit up in a sharp curving tribal pattern, a brilliant shining orange as he connected to the network for a duel. 

He drew his cards, just as Rei announced, "I'll begin!" In his own field he wasn't going to let someone else beat him to the punch.

His cards in his hand. . . He'd hastily had his deck altered by 96, so he'd have the level 3s necessary to make his XYZ form. He didn't recognize all of them, and had to pause to start to read, as 96 beside him stuck his head over his shoulder to direct Rei's playing. "Call out the Malicevorous monsters to overlay. Use the power of my true form!"

Rei put a hand through 96's insubstantial face, to make him move away. "I didn't take this power so you could boss me around. I'll do this my way." 96 made a hiss like a cat, hilariously offended, as he floated out of Rei's reach.

"No one's bossing you around!" Alit shouted from the other side of the platform, and Rei brightened and nodded, pleased _someone_ had agreed with him, even if Alit wasn't being helpful otherwise.

"Yes, that's what I said! So, my turn! I play set two cards face down and end my turn!"

" _Shingetsu_ ," 96 growled, "I will make you regret it if you ignore me." Rei smirked at the theatrics. 

"Shhh, shhhh." He shushed him "We'll miss what Alit is going to do, if you keep talking."

"You're the only one talking!" Alit pointed at him, voice loud and confused. Rei smiled a little blameless smile and shrugged at him. It wasn't Rei's fault that Alit couldn't see 96. "But all right, my turn! I draw, and summon, Burning Knuckler Glassjaw! And when I have a Burning Knuckler on the field, I can special summon Burning Knuckler Spar! Overlay!" 

Rei watched as Alit's ace appeared on the field, and stretched. It was a big thing, chained, on two feet. It seemed Alit didn't understand how dueling worked _at all_ in these kinds of fields. He was the more experienced duelist, but Rei had the advantage here— he knew the rules didn't apply.

Well, no reason to tip his hand early.

"Trap, activate! Phoenix Wing Wind Blast!" Rei called out, paying the price from his hand , as before him a great phoenix appeared to flap its wings, the whirlwind aimed straight at Alit's monster— and Alit. In the gale wind forces, Alit steeled himself on instinct, but the whipping of the chains that tied his monster down swung wildly, and knocked into him. He staggered then flung himself aside, out of the path of his monster as force of speeding wind whipped it from its feet and flung it over the edge into the abyss. Disappointing. It would have been easier to win if it has just knocked Alit off with it.

"What—!? What the hell is this!?"

"A trap card! It made your monster go back to the extra deck!" Rei called out, knowing perfectly well that wasn't what was meant. Saying it was real was redundant now, as Alit's skin was starting to bruise and discolor where the chain had bashed him. Probably, he understood. If he didn't get it already, then explaining it wouldn't do any good anyway. Better to demonstrate!

"You know that's not what I meant! Man—why am I even trying to talk to you? Turn end!" Alit left his field open, and glared at Rei, challenging.

Rei smiled back at him, unwaveringly upbeat, and drew a card. Doing everything in proper order was kind of tedious, but it was worth it just for how much 96 was seething beside him, unwilling to give him orders again if Rei was just going to go against him to prove he could. Rei drew his card and checked his hand again. 

Actually, he still didn't know how to use those cards. "96, what did you want me to play again?"

"Wait, 96!? A Numbers? You're numbers possessed!" Rei ignored Alit's shouting, making a shooshing gesture. He wanted to hear what 96 had to say.

"Malicevorous! Special summon fork, discard the spoon, summon the knife and call the spoon from the grave. Do you see just how much you need my support, now?"

Hmm . . . Rei looked the cards over. Oh, that made sense. "Something like that." He played, just as instructed. The three imps were swept up in the whirlpool of an overlay, and Black Mist's form expanded a rose, towering above him. Rei looked between the two of them, 96 and his monster form. "The more threatening one, attack Alit directly!" 

_You only have one monster on your field_ he expected Alit to reply, but this time his opponent had no interest in shouting at Rei while he wasn't listening. Instead, his attention was entirely on the attack as Black Mist lurched a single step forward then shot forward. Alit looked dead at the monster, bracing, his fists raised before him. Despite the looming figure, the height that Alit must have _known_ he couldn't defend himself from, he looked prepared.

What an idiot. 

One black arm rose up, to come crashing down on Alit and Rei leaned forward in anticipation, as it came down on Alit heavy, and he staggered beneath the weight. A quarter of his life points gone, he dropped into a crouch, looking up. 

But then Alit grinned suddenly and called out, "Not bad! Burning Knuckler Veil!" Right between him and Black Mist, a boxer dropped down, mirroring Alit's earlier prepared boxing crouch with a shield mounted on each arm, ready to defend. "When I take battle damage, I can summon this guy out and regain life-points equal to what I lost!" He staggered upright, grin upbeat and defiant.

Oh, so he had a plan. But he was still thinking about it all wrong. If the damage to his body took him out, it didn't _matter_ what his life points were. Rei’s fingers drummed impatiently over the backs of the cards in his hand, eager to see the look on Alit’s face when he realized the trap he was in, but _not yet_. Rei would play by the rules for a little while longer. "Okay. Then I'm going to end my turn."

Wasting no time, Alit took his draw. "Burning Knuckler, Headgear! _This time_ , you're going down! XYZ summon, Burning Knuckler, Lead Blow!" 

With a great reverberating _thud_ , the monster returned to the field. Rei flicked a glance at his cards—nothing. But he still had overlay units, so there was no problem. 

"Okay, now—attack!" Alit punched the air, commanding his monster to charge out and do the same.

"Huh? Did you forget already?" Rei tilted his head, nonplussed. "With Black Mist's effect, that won't work."

"Hah! That's what you think!" He displayed a magic card proudly in his hand then slammed it down on his duel disk, "Overlay flash! Lead Blow loses an overlay unit, and your monster loses it's effect, and Lead Blow gains 800 attack from its own effect!" He mimed a blow at Rei. "Your Numbers isn't anything special without its effect!"

Alit wasn't wrong. “Oh, no,” Rei breathed out, his eyes going wide and round, as he stared up at the oncoming monster—restraining himself for _just a few seconds longer_ before he broke into a stretched grin and jerked his head upwards, staring directly at his Number. "In that case— _dodge!_ " Rei cried out, and dissolved into peals of laughter.

Before Alit could submit any protests, the monster fluidly collapsed into a dark shape across the floor, allowing momentum to carry Alit's monster past before it reformed itself, fully sized, where Lead Blow itself had been just a moment ago. "Now, turn your attention to the real target!" Black Mist advanced while Alit gaped openly up at its looming form, gone shock still. It raised its claws high, then sliced downwards with inhuman speed—a strike so vicious that Rei thought, with a sort of giddiness, that even if physical damage doesn’t carry over, his _mind_ might not recover—

But Alit leapt out of the way just in time, Black Mist’s talons barely grazing the leg of his pants. It grasped at air, staggering to turn about face and pursue him, but it would be too slow—still in a crouch, Alit lifted his head and met Rei’s gaze with a light in his eyes that made Rei’s gut lurch. "No more rules, huh? Fine by me,” he called out, suddenly smiling, baring his teeth like unsheathing a sword. “A real brawl is just my style!”

Rei miscalculated: the fight, he might not have won fairly. But a fight against Alit's fists, he _definitely_ stood no chance against. He stepped back, turned halfway around to run—and froze, for only a second. His own coward’s impulse tasted like bile on his tongue, and for just that moment, his mind began to race, looking for any way to win that wasn’t his old, weak habit of turning tail all over again, gritting his teeth together so fiercely the scowl ached in his cheeks—

But that moment was all the time Alit needed to close the distance between them with bounding strides. Rei lashed out almost mindlessly at the sudden closeness, his hands more like claws than fists, only for Alit to duck out of the way and step to the side. Then, before Rei had the chance to recover, Alit struck him across the back of the neck with the blade of his hand. Shooting pain pierced Rei’s vision, and his consciousness with it—in his last moments of lucidity, through spots of spreading blackness, he could make out the color returning to the world around him, tilting waywards as he collapsed, face-first, back onto the asphalt streets of Heartland.

\--

In a barren field of rocks and crystal, with flecks like starlight drifting through the still air, there lay an unearthly silence. Two cloaked figures sat at a distance from each other, one staring intently at the other’s closed eyes, neither so much as breathing, until—

“Nnnnnnnnrrrraaauuuggghhh!!” One let out a yell of pure frustration, an echo chamber quality to her voice as she leapt to her feet and cast her pink hood back from her head.“I can’t take it anymore! You, you might as well be sleeping!” She pointed an accusing finger at the other, who didn’t so much as deign to open his eyes. “Don’t ignore me!!”

At that, his eyes slipped open, pure gold without so much as whites or pupils, and he looked up at her, with a slow and unmoved gaze. “You haven’t said anything which I haven’t already heard you say.”

“You’re one to talk about changing things up!” she all but roared. “But now’s different! The Astral World is weak—we should strike now! If we wait any longer we’ll pass up a swift and easy victory!!”

He turned his head to look behind him, up at the massive, red-tinged crystal that he rested his back against, and at the dark silhouette suspended within it. “So strike.”

“You’re the—wha?” Ready for an argument, getting a sudden agreement instead robbed the wind out of her sails. She stood in brief, flabbergasted silence for a solid few seconds before recovering, propping fists up on her jewel-encrusted hips, her eyes narrowing from comically wide to critical slits. “There’s no way you’re leaving that easily.”

“I am not. I intend to remain here, as I have been.” He inclined his head, looking back at her once more, with an open gaze. “You should do as you see fit, and I will do the same.”

“Well—well fine!” She stepped—stomped, really, into a half-pivot, somehow making it into a grand, full-body movement that flourished the line of her cloak through the air. “Just watch me! You keep waiting right there—and when _that person_ wakes up, you’ll be the one to share the news of my glorious victory for Barian!”

And with that, she swept out an arm and called up a portal, taking her leave with an immediacy that didn’t even give him time to wish her luck. He gave a soft sigh—only an echoing noise, really, with no nose or mouth to breath out from—and closed his eyes once more.

“I couldn’t control them if I tried,” he spoke to the empty air.


End file.
